Covid-19 in OKC (coronavirus)

[PhiAlpha]

Read up on Typhoid Mary to broaden your perspective a bit.

Yeah using one crazy outlier to advocate for more government control is a bit disturbing.

[PhiAlpha]

This happened.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5...Tu94qpgnLyvREw

And more things like this will continue to happen and happen more frequently until a timeline is put in place to reopen things. I get that you either have a job that isn’t threatened by this or are fine collecting unemployment for the foreseeable future...but many of us aren’t in that position.

[oklip955]

I say we need to keep things semi shut down for another month until the numbers come down. I am over 60 with a persissant cough most of the year due to allergies and althma. I cannot take most of the athma meds. I've been told that I am in a moderate risk if I get it. The only real way for me to aviod this is to just stay home. Since I am retired, that is what I am doing. I have been out now once to shop for food since the lockdown. Iwas social distancing long before it. I plan on only going out maybe once a month or so for shopping until this gets much better. Just not worth the risk.

[kukblue1]

I say we need to keep things semi shut down for another month until the numbers come down. I am over 60 with a persissant cough most of the year due to allergies and althma. I cannot take most of the athma meds. I've been told that I am in a moderate risk if I get it. The only real way for me to aviod this is to just stay home. Since I am retired, that is what I am doing. I have been out now once to shop for food since the lockdown. Iwas social distancing long before it. I plan on only going out maybe once a month or so for shopping until this gets much better. Just not worth the risk.

It's hard though but the over 60 crowd is the ones we really need to protect. It's hard though cause I work 53 other half 64 doesn't work and has COPD. Luckily I work in a office where it's just one of us at a time we just have to make sure we are cleaning after every shift so i feel fairly safe. If were going to open the country back up it needs to start with the under 40/50 healthy crowd and do it slowly. Just look at the deaths. Most are 65 and over. Then there is the 50-64. Under 50 there only been like 5? Way less than the flu.

[OKC Talker]

Interesting background information:

"The Governor and Oklahoma State Health Department are using modeling data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The model uses reported deaths from all over the world to project hospital surges.

The IHME model has been widely criticized because it is a statistical model and does not use any information about transmission rates and has no basis in epidemiology.

The model has been criticized by many in the science community due to the volatility in its predictions.

A critique of the model was in the Annals of Internal Medicine published Wednesday, the same day the Governor’s office started widely distributing its model:

One group of international data scientists found the model to be inaccurate in 70% of states in its predictions of death rates, the main metric it uses to model hospital use.

One academic with extensive experience in epidemic modeling criticized Oklahoma’s citation-absent model.

“I think big problems are too much information and a lack of context for any specific result. A model is only as good as its assumptions and data, both of which should be available,” said Dr. Sean Laverty, who holds a doctorate in mathematical biology. He has done research in the mathematics of epidemiology."

https://freepressokc.com/flawed-scie...opening-plans/

[OKC Guy]

Shake Shack

The CEO decided it is best to return the $10 million loan after hearing the paycheck protection program ran out of money.

[Teo9969]

Shake Shack

The CEO decided it is best to return the $10 million loan after hearing the paycheck protection program ran out of money.

If we had one here, I'd buy a burger for lunch as a sign of solidarity.

[Pete]

Numbers updated for Monday:

[OKC Talker]

Shake Shack

The CEO decided it is best to return the $10 million loan after hearing the paycheck protection program ran out of money.

Lol, gotta love that spin. My take on it is that corporations which make billions of dollars a year scammed millions out of a fund intended to keep mom and pop businesses from going under in another example of corporate greed. You can blame the legislators who were lobbied to create this loophole, the administration that didn't properly manage it, the huge banks which rushed these loans through for their business clients, or all of the above.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...s-program-dry/

[soonerguru]

Yeah using one crazy outlier to advocate for more government control is a bit disturbing.

It is not one outlier. There is evidence suggesting that people who are not yet exhibiting symptoms are more contagious right before the symptoms set in.

So this is not a matter of people making some libertarian choice, or free will, because people are unwitting spreaders of this virus, such as the minister from the Tulsa area who traveled to give a revival in Greer County, setting off a chain of some 50 cases and five deaths. Then, he went to Wagoner County and did the same, which is now over 100 cases. That is one guy.

I'm not sure exactly what you are advocating exactly but I think a lot of people are having trouble understanding that even if the governor says, "We are open for business" people are not going to flock back to restaurants, concerts, church, etc.

People and businesses are going to have to make major adjustments to survive, regardless of government policy. But Oklahoma now has more cases and deaths than Tokyo, which is enjoying its own resurgence in cases.

What do people think is going to happen if everyone suddenly goes back to Penn Square Mall, and Chili's?

The history of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic in Oklahoma City is fascinating to read. It is eerie how similar it seems to this moment. The city at the time had an initial wave of cases in the spring, and OKC did a lot of similar things then that we did during this pandemic. Then, when cases began to decline in the summer, people went back to their regular lives, and it was the second wave of the virus, which crested in late summer through the fall, that killed millions in the United States, and several thousand in OKC.

So there is historical precedent to this. Yes, it sucks, but trying to deny the reality of this is just obtuse and frankly insensitive to the people who will have to deal with the sick people in the hospitals, doctor's offices, grocery stores, etc.

One choir rehearsal in rural Washington state led to some 30 transmissions and 2 deaths.

Can you imagine what will happen when Governor Stitt says it's OK to return to the megachurches?

[Teo9969]

Lol, gotta love that spin. My take on it is that corporations which make billions of dollars a year scammed millions out of a fund intended to keep mom and pop businesses from going under in another example of corporate greed. You can blame the legislators who were lobbied to create this loophole, the administration that didn't properly manage it, the huge banks which rushed these loans through for their business clients, or all of the above.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...s-program-dry/

Even so, they took the correct action and that's commendable. Just because congress was effectively lobbied, does not necessarily mean that Shake Shack or specific others took part in the lobbying.

In this time, I'm going to choose to believe in the more charitable interpretation of these actions, if the companies actions also appear to be in kind (i.e. doing it now, as soon as possible, and not 3 weeks from now).

[soonerguru]

If they are making definitive predictions about long-term health impacts when we have no long-term data for them to base it off it, it's a mistruth at best. Maybe they'll be right, but they cannot know for certain at this time.

And my lie judgement was about the masks which is why it was in that paragraph, not the long-term impacts of the virus which I covered in the first paragraph. What other conclusion can be made about the flip-flop on whether masks should be worn by the general public? Either they were lying then or they are lying now.

Unfortunately they have to make predictions. We need their predictions. They may not be right but this is not just about fatalities. There are some weird cases of people having neurotoxic reactions, losing memory and becoming confused, organ failure, and permanent lung damage. These are from folks who were not on ventilators.

I will never understand why some people insist on minimizing and downplaying things that have enormous impact on people's lives. Perhaps it is just a psychological defense mechanism so people can go about their lives free from guilt or worry.

I find it especially troublesome when I read the weird undertones about "underlying conditions" and "they lived in a rest home,' and "people over 65." OK, so what? They deserve to die? Is that the message?

There are people of a certain political persuasion who are more likely to say things like this --- right up until it afflicts them or a member of their family -- and then it becomes a major national priority.

[dankrutka]

Thats one way to look at it, but I donÂ’t think itÂ’s the right one. Though I donÂ’t agree with you very often so that probably shouldnÂ’t be surprising. It isnÂ’t individual selfishness, itÂ’s an unwillingness to give up freedoms because of the slippery slope it creates. I will never agree to anything like what you are suggesting and the massive invasion of privacy that creates...and I say that as a Republican with Republicans in control of most of the government currently. Mandatory tracking of individuals by using their cell phones is just not a box I want opened.

I understand the concern. Having said that, you realize it's already happening, right? Tech companies are tracking, extracting, and selling your personal data everyday. The government has access to much of this data too. That's what the whole Edward Snowden controversy was about. Again, I am an activist for data privacy, but if people want to, for example, re-gain any semblance of a public life then phone tracing is one of the best solutions. Other countries have set it up with certain limits. If you decide that it's not worth it then you're prioritizing personal data privacy over many other rights (e.g., ability to go in public), public health, sickness and health, and economic activity. So, while taking a stance one right that already is being violated, you're forgoing many other rights. To me, the trade-off makes sense. We should use our energy to ensure phone/health tracking is done in a way that ensures long-term privacy.

[SoonerDave]

Interesting background information:

"The Governor and Oklahoma State Health Department are using modeling data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The model uses reported deaths from all over the world to project hospital surges.

The IHME model has been widely criticized because it is a statistical model and does not use any information about transmission rates and has no basis in epidemiology.

The model has been criticized by many in the science community due to the volatility in its predictions.

A critique of the model was in the Annals of Internal Medicine published Wednesday, the same day the Governor’s office started widely distributing its model:

One group of international data scientists found the model to be inaccurate in 70% of states in its predictions of death rates, the main metric it uses to model hospital use.

One academic with extensive experience in epidemic modeling criticized Oklahoma’s citation-absent model.

“I think big problems are too much information and a lack of context for any specific result. A model is only as good as its assumptions and data, both of which should be available,” said Dr. Sean Laverty, who holds a doctorate in mathematical biology. He has done research in the mathematics of epidemiology."

https://freepressokc.com/flawed-scie...opening-plans/

When the model was shown to be wrong in virtually every respect, it's use should have been discontinued. When the OHD published it's projections based on the same model plus two additional days of real world data, it was shown to be absurdly flawed upon release. I'm no statistical expert, but I was able to do some basic analysis on the real data and realize their peak projections had almost no basis in mathematical reality. And each additional day of real data made it more evident.

[Canoe]

When the model was shown to be wrong in virtually every respect, it's use should have been discontinued. When the OHD published it's projections based on the same model plus two additional days of real world data, it was shown to be absurdly flawed upon release. I'm no statistical expert, but I was able to do some basic analysis on the real data and realize their peak projections had almost no basis in mathematical reality. And each additional day of real data made it more evident.

I think they projected the infection rate correctly, but the mortality rate was way off.

[SoonerDave]

I think they projected the infection rate correctly, but the mortality rate was way off.

Nope. The infection rate was one of the worst offenders. They were projecting *hundreds* of daily cases in April leading toward the 9,300 projected cases by May
1.

[OKC Guy]

When the model was shown to be wrong in virtually every respect, it's use should have been discontinued. When the OHD published it's projections based on the same model plus two additional days of real world data, it was shown to be absurdly flawed upon release. I'm no statistical expert, but I was able to do some basic analysis on the real data and realize their peak projections had almost no basis in mathematical reality. And each additional day of real data made it more evident.

Very true!!

[Canoe]

Nope. The infection rate was one of the worst offenders. They were projecting *hundreds* of daily cases in April leading toward the 9,300 projected cases by May
1.

Those are the ones tested. My guess is that there is a large untested population that has it or has had it, but unless you are old or overweight or have other conditions you typically do not die from the disease.

At this point would it be cheaper to quarantine the old old, obese and sick, and let the young and healthy work until they come up with a vaccine? Dan, what am I missing from your point of view?

[kukblue1]

Those are the ones tested. My guess is that there is a large untested population that has it or has had it, but unless you are old or overweight or have other conditions you typically do not die from the disease.

At this point would it be cheaper to quarantine the old old, obese and sick, and let the young and healthy work until they come up with a vaccine? Dan, what am I missing from your point of view?

I've been saying this for a while. Let the under 45 crowd out and keep the older crowd in. Give them the extra unemployment money and extra checks . Let the younger crowd get herd immunity.

[PhiAlpha]

I've been saying this for a while. Let the under 45 crowd out and keep the older crowd in. Give them the extra unemployment money and extra checks . Let the younger crowd get herd immunity.

Yes, though I would add to it those that are young but in the high-risk category and potentially caretakers if they must be in constant close proximity to any of the above.

[David]

https://www.rainews.it/tgr/tagesscha...BTnI8jkgtyrRrY

Article is in German but the translation Google provided read as pretty clean English. Apparently there are reports that people who recovered with even just mild symptoms have some amount of permanent lung damage.

In the clinic, doctors have treated dozens of coronavirus sufferers in the past few weeks, from symptom-free spreaders to intensive care patients on the heart-lung machine. Among them were six active divers, all of whom did not have to be treated in hospital, but cured themselves in home quarantines. All of them were not severe cases, their illnesses were five to six weeks ago and they are considered to have recovered. But they can no longer dive. "The damage to the lungs is irreversible," said Hartig in an interview with the APA.

"This is shocking, we don't understand what's going on here. They are probably lifelong patients, so it doesn't matter whether they dive again or not," said the doctor. The bad news was made clear by lung CTs. "They didn't get any better at all in imaging," said Hartig. "As an emergency doctor with 20 years of experience, you swallow when you see something like this in a 40-year-old patient."

In the control after several weeks, two patients showed significant oxygen deficiency when under stress as a typical sign of persistent lung shunt. In two, the bronchi were still very excitable when under stress, as in asthmatics. Four out of the six divers still showed impressive lung changes on the control CT. "I even called on the X-ray to see if they had swapped the pictures because a healthy patient was sitting in front of us," said Hartig. "When they saw their own pictures, it was shocking for them," said the doctor. "You have to check regularly with such lung damage."

[Pete]

Numbers just updated for Tuesday:

[David]

21 deaths today? That is an unpleasantly sharp uptick.

[Pete]

21 deaths today? That is an unpleasantly sharp uptick.

The report said 5 deaths in the last 24 hours, so the remainder must be casualties that came earlier but are now attributed to the virus.

[AP]

I hoping that is due to delayed reporting from other sources.