Covid-19 Response - or Over Reaction?

Klinker said:

I wonder whether Tomcat still thinks the government is over reacting.

The jury is still out.  I do not have enough information to be able to compare the relative merits/costs of:

  • The economic cost of shutting everything down.
  • The value of not overburdening the inadequate US health care system (there is a lesson in this, a universal public health care system is easier to manage).
  • The cost of denying treatment to those infected (= accepting that 2-3 million might die).  I can understand why no politician would select this option, but it just might be the most beneficial solution (leading to an overall healthier population going forward).

Don't get me wrong.  I am not advocating any of these, I am just playing the Devils advocate.


tomcat said:

The jury is still out.  I do not have enough information to be able to compare the relative merits/costs of:

  • The economic cost of shutting everything down.
  • The value of not overburdening the inadequate US health care system (there is a lesson in this, a universal public health care system is easier to manage).
  • The cost of denying treatment to those infected (= accepting that 2-3 million might die).  I can understand why no politician would select this option, but it just might be the most beneficial solution (leading to an overall healthier population going forward).

Don't get me wrong.  I am not advocating any of these, I am just playing the Devils advocate.

 Are you only taking into account economic considerations?  It seems to me that there are other factors at play.  A society that condemns its weakest members to die so that the survivors can enjoy a better standard of living would rightly be described as monstrous.


Komarovsky said:

drummerboy said:

joan_crystal said:

What seems to be missing in the discussion of face masks is that a face mask has to be custom fit to the face in order to be effective.  Just having a face mask won't necessarily help you.

 It's not exactly rocket science

 My wife is an infectious disease microbiologist.  Her PhD was spent developing a better vaccine for plague (Y. pestis) and required her to do experiments on mice in biosafety level 3 lab space, which required her to wear an n95.  The process to fit an n95 required her to use a special machine that would test the performance of the mask while she talked and while just breathing.  She had to go through 2 different brands before they found the brand and size that fit her.  

If you don't get a fit done like that, the mask will not perform to spec.   

well working 95% to spec for a layperson following a youtube video is a lot better than no mask at all.

And I can pretty much guarantee you that 90% of medical professionals are not wearing a mask such that it is 100% effective. Nor are they working in a biosafety level 3 lab space.  

I don't quite understand all of the pushback on the general public wearing masks (other than making sure there are enough for doctors and nurses). Even a mask put on half-assed is better than no mask.


Was at a local clinic to pick up a refill of meds two days ago.   All patients, docs and admins were wearing regular surgical masks, which are 90% effective on their own, but if everyone is wearing them the number is probably closer to 100% because they do catch all droplets issuing out of mouths and nostrils.  There was also ample hand sanitizer everywhere: where one pays, next to elevators, at the top and bottoms of stairwells, etc.  


Public use hand sanitizer in stores is a little scarce these days around here. At least the handful of places I've been to.


tomcat said:

Klinker said:

I wonder whether Tomcat still thinks the government is over reacting.

The jury is still out.  I do not have enough information to be able to compare the relative merits/costs of:

  • The economic cost of shutting everything down.
  • The value of not overburdening the inadequate US health care system (there is a lesson in this, a universal public health care system is easier to manage).
  • The cost of denying treatment to those infected (= accepting that 2-3 million might die).  I can understand why no politician would select this option, but it just might be the most beneficial solution (leading to an overall healthier population going forward).

Don't get me wrong.  I am not advocating any of these, I am just playing the Devils advocate.

As a further devil's advocate, the virus is mutating, and could become more deadly for healthier and younger people (which may already be occurring) before we have a treatment or immunization to reduce the negative effects. 

In that scenario, does the value increase for shutting everything down to slow its spread?


sprout said:

As a further devil's advocate, the virus is mutating, and could become more deadly for healthier and younger people (which may already be occurring) before we have a treatment or immunization to reduce the negative effects. 

In that scenario, does the value increase for shutting everything down to slow its spread?

 If/when the virus mutates, even those who have survived a previous infection will be susceptible to contracting the newly mutated infection.  I don't see that as an argument against shutting everything down.


If the shutdown can provide more time to determine a treatment that reduces severity (like Tamiflu does for flu); and/or develop an immunization that provides some protection (we guess the strain each year for flu, so would need to guess the strain for this one), then fewer will suffer or die.


dave said:

Was at a local clinic to pick up a refill of meds two days ago.   All patients, docs and admins were wearing regular surgical masks, which are 90% effective on their own, but if everyone is wearing them the number is probably closer to 100% because they do catch all droplets issuing out of mouths and nostrils.  There was also ample hand sanitizer everywhere: where one pays, next to elevators, at the top and bottoms of stairwells, etc.  

Masks is what I argued. Sometimes I feel I've been talking to a wall. It also goes two ways, the mask you're wearing catching the droplets from the non-wearer.

Its my hope that China may be getting this under control. We see only 125 new cases in a population that had 82,000. Many are from immigrants. Some say the Chinese  are lying but you can't lie in Hong Kong where there is heavy social interaction.

If they could wipe it out, then we need to do the same. We can make the virus extinct in the population as was done with smallpox, no longer needing to worry about recurrence or seasonal issues. Or we be not heavy handed while worrying about economic issues and consequently putting up with this for years, until we develop herd immunity. Should the virus mutate I wouldn't depend too much on herd immunity.


Once there is wide availability (I.e. once the medical world is fully supplied) we may well all want to wear surgical masks - if we happen to be infected, they protect the world from us, and wearing them may need to become the social norm.  Once the supply ramp up meets medical need.

The NPR article posted above was a painful and important read. It shows that the equipment to make N95 masks (the masks that filter tiny things and protect the wearer) is very expensive and slow to manufacture and get working. Assuming the article is accurate, market forces may not be enough. We need our government to ensure a market for these or help with the investment, to overcome any reluctance to make major investments for an uncertain market months from now.

And we all need to adjust to a world where we won’t get these as civilian gear anytime soon. I worry for my brother, an ER doctor in a state not yet slammed. I can wear a bandana as a mask for the grocery, but he needs a good supply of the real thing, as do all of our local medical personnel.


BG9, we only got smallpox under control with a good vaccine. We will see what happens in China as restrictions lift. I’m assuming they (and we) will have to react to outbreaks for as long as it takes to either get people vaccinated or have this disease run through a substantial part of the population.

For most of us, our job is to try to stay healthy, use telemedicine, and flatten the curve while supporting the scramble to build hospitals, ramp up supplies of protective equipment, ventilators, tests, swabs, etc. 

Those of us who can work from home need to get used to it, I fear. Take care if each other, keep things uncrowded for those who have to be out. Life could be different for quite a while.

Speaking politically, times like this are when governments should run big deficits, to help everyone impacted (including waiters and gig workers), to stimulate production of essential supplies, etc.  Deficits to give huge tax rollbacks in prosperous times make me angry, because they leave us less fiscally healthy for times like this.


Klinker said:

tomcat said:

The jury is still out.  I do not have enough information to be able to compare the relative merits/costs of:

  • The economic cost of shutting everything down.
  • The value of not overburdening the inadequate US health care system (there is a lesson in this, a universal public health care system is easier to manage).
  • The cost of denying treatment to those infected (= accepting that 2-3 million might die).  I can understand why no politician would select this option, but it just might be the most beneficial solution (leading to an overall healthier population going forward).

Don't get me wrong.  I am not advocating any of these, I am just playing the Devils advocate.

 Are you only taking into account economic considerations?  It seems to me that there are other factors at play.  A society that condemns its weakest members to die so that the survivors can enjoy a better standard of living would rightly be described as monstrous.

If the benefit was a single life, would you shut down society for 90 days across the nation?

If the life in question was yours, would you condemn your entire extended family & circle of friends to unemployment, and perhaps loss of houses?


My hope is that this will result in the economic inequity skew to also flatten (or shorten), and more universal safety nets to develop. That would help many more in the long run. That said, with the current administration, it's unlikely.


This is not about a single life. It is potentially about millions of lives, so I refuse to debate angels dancing on the head of a pin hypotheticals.

And (#%$&) while I was worrying about my ER doctor brother, my sister’s entire family, north of Pittsburgh, is sick with something.  My almost 87 year old mother, who lives with them, has a cough that is getting worse and worse. So far they are being told no tests, stay home, OTC meds.  Feeling powerless here.


drummerboy said:

Komarovsky said:

drummerboy said:

joan_crystal said:

What seems to be missing in the discussion of face masks is that a face mask has to be custom fit to the face in order to be effective.  Just having a face mask won't necessarily help you.

 It's not exactly rocket science

 My wife is an infectious disease microbiologist.  Her PhD was spent developing a better vaccine for plague (Y. pestis) and required her to do experiments on mice in biosafety level 3 lab space, which required her to wear an n95.  The process to fit an n95 required her to use a special machine that would test the performance of the mask while she talked and while just breathing.  She had to go through 2 different brands before they found the brand and size that fit her.  

If you don't get a fit done like that, the mask will not perform to spec.   

well working 95% to spec for a layperson following a youtube video is a lot better than no mask at all.

And I can pretty much guarantee you that 90% of medical professionals are not wearing a mask such that it is 100% effective. Nor are they working in a biosafety level 3 lab space.  

I don't quite understand all of the pushback on the general public wearing masks (other than making sure there are enough for doctors and nurses). Even a mask put on half-assed is better than no mask.

Medical professionals are getting fitted. A very good friend is an ER doc in CA at the county hospital, another is an ER doc in a MA hospital.  Everyone got that fit test, doctors and nurses, precisely because they're working in the equivalent to BSL3 conditions(pathogens and their vectors are open and common in the environment).  

A mask that is not professionally fitted gives one a false sense of security, leading them to take risks that the mask will not protect them from.   

You know how you prevent becoming infected regardless of mask usage?  Stay home and if you absolutely must go outside, stay 6 feet away from people, don't touch your face and wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds.  A properly fitted mask only protects from airborne transmission, it does not protect against direct contact with bodily fluids or pathogens on surfaces.  Only those four steps can.


The fact is that most of us are going to get COVID-19, it's just a matter of spacing out the timing so we don't totally overwhelm the already overwhelmed healthcare system. Social distancing and closing down non-essential businesses is painful and is going to cause a world of hurt, including to those of us who "saved  aggressively while paying off [our] mortgage[s]." I did, but that doesn't mean those savings will mean much if we have invested them or that our homes will be worth what they were a month ago. But these steps are necessary and are for the public good.


tomcat said:

If the benefit was a single life, would you shut down society for 90 days across the nation?

If the life in question was yours, would you condemn your entire extended family & circle of friends to unemployment, and perhaps loss of houses?

 Why was man created alone? Is it not true that the creator could have created the whole of humanity? But man was created alone to teach you that whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire.
—paraphrased from the Talmud


tomcat said:

If the benefit was a single life, would you shut down society for 90 days across the nation?

If the life in question was yours, would you condemn your entire extended family & circle of friends to unemployment, and perhaps loss of houses?

What about two or three? Maybe five or ten? A hundred?

After all, if one life is to be sacrificed for the "greater good", then can we not sacrifice two? Or maybe three? And so on...


Another perspective:   

With the typical American individualism (& Millenials self-centeredness), I fear that there are enough people ignoring the directives, that it will largely defeat the efforts at containing/controlling the rate of new infections.


tomcat said:

Another perspective:   

With the typical American individualism (& Millenials self-centeredness), I fear that there are enough people ignoring the directives, that it will largely defeat the efforts at containing/controlling the rate of new infections.

 This is what I fear.  My ex, who still lives in Maplewood with my kids, was telling me about a party of some sort yesterday in her neighborhood.  My two boys who have been trying to go for walks were telling me that there were quite a few gatherings of more than 10 people that they encountered on their walk around the same neighborhood.  WTF people?

It's a manifestation of the "rules don't apply to me" thinking that we encounter complaining about drivers in town.


Komarovsky said:

Medical professionals are getting fitted. A very good friend is an ER doc in CA at the county hospital, another is an ER doc in a MA hospital.  Everyone got that fit test, doctors and nurses, precisely because they're working in the equivalent to BSL3 conditions(pathogens and their vectors are open and common in the environment).  

A mask that is not professionally fitted gives one a false sense of security, leading them to take risks that the mask will not protect them from.   

You know how you prevent becoming infected regardless of mask usage?  Stay home and if you absolutely must go outside, stay 6 feet away from people, don't touch your face and wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds.  A properly fitted mask only protects from airborne transmission, it does not protect against direct contact with bodily fluids or pathogens on surfaces.  Only those four steps can.

What does "professionally fitted" mean? It sounds like each medical professional is getting an individual fitting session with a kung-fu master of masks.  I doubt that's happening.

The masks are not that complicated. How could they be? The more complicated they are, the more chance of failure.

I still don't understand what the big deal is. A mask is better than no mask. Period.

fergawdsakes a few days ago they were saying use a bandana or a scarf if you couldn't get a mask. Obviously anything covering your nose and mouth is going to be better than not having a covering over your nose and mouth.

I'm not saying a mask makes you impervious, but geez, c'mon.


We live in the richest nation on the planet, but individual volunteers are sewing masks for healthcare professionals.

Think about that before you vote in November.


drummerboy said:

Komarovsky said:

Medical professionals are getting fitted. A very good friend is an ER doc in CA at the county hospital, another is an ER doc in a MA hospital.  Everyone got that fit test, doctors and nurses, precisely because they're working in the equivalent to BSL3 conditions(pathogens and their vectors are open and common in the environment).  

A mask that is not professionally fitted gives one a false sense of security, leading them to take risks that the mask will not protect them from.   

You know how you prevent becoming infected regardless of mask usage?  Stay home and if you absolutely must go outside, stay 6 feet away from people, don't touch your face and wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds.  A properly fitted mask only protects from airborne transmission, it does not protect against direct contact with bodily fluids or pathogens on surfaces.  Only those four steps can.

What does "professionally fitted" mean? It sounds like each medical professional is getting an individual fitting session with a kung-fu master of masks.  I doubt that's happening.

The masks are not that complicated. How could they be? The more complicated they are, the more chance of failure.

I still don't understand what the big deal is. A mask is better than no mask. Period.

fergawdsakes a few days ago they were saying use a bandana or a scarf if you couldn't get a mask. Obviously anything covering your nose and mouth is going to be better than not having a covering over your nose and mouth.

I'm not saying a mask makes you impervious, but geez, c'mon.

 I’ll have to ask my husband, but if I recall correctly at his old workplace it was something like they put the mask on and spray saccharine to see if any gets through.  Since saccharine is so sweet even a tiny amount would be noticeable.  At his old workplace they did fit tests once a year, and certain facial hair was not allowed because it could interfere with the fit.

At his new workplace he was very surprised to see many people with full beards, though in the past few weeks almost everyone has shaved


krnl said:

I happened on this NPR article several days ago. These masks are pretty sophisticated to manufacture.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has-caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR30d1yN980fZXUXrLPsA5n2DiaDGOOSQ_F6MfscUKCnRFJnsFJscpcKm-c

 A local group on Facebook have organized to make as many of these masks as they can following an approved pattern.  


tomcat said:

If the benefit was a single life, would you shut down society for 90 days across the nation?

If the life in question was yours, would you condemn your entire extended family & circle of friends to unemployment, and perhaps loss of houses?

 This question is totally irrelevant because we are not talking about a single life but rather (potentially) millions of lives.

If you want to have a discussion about entirely hypothetical ethical issues, PM me when this crisis is a distant memory and I will be happy to oblige.


spontaneous said:

drummerboy said:

Komarovsky said:

Medical professionals are getting fitted. A very good friend is an ER doc in CA at the county hospital, another is an ER doc in a MA hospital.  Everyone got that fit test, doctors and nurses, precisely because they're working in the equivalent to BSL3 conditions(pathogens and their vectors are open and common in the environment).  

A mask that is not professionally fitted gives one a false sense of security, leading them to take risks that the mask will not protect them from.   

You know how you prevent becoming infected regardless of mask usage?  Stay home and if you absolutely must go outside, stay 6 feet away from people, don't touch your face and wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds.  A properly fitted mask only protects from airborne transmission, it does not protect against direct contact with bodily fluids or pathogens on surfaces.  Only those four steps can.

What does "professionally fitted" mean? It sounds like each medical professional is getting an individual fitting session with a kung-fu master of masks.  I doubt that's happening.

The masks are not that complicated. How could they be? The more complicated they are, the more chance of failure.

I still don't understand what the big deal is. A mask is better than no mask. Period.

fergawdsakes a few days ago they were saying use a bandana or a scarf if you couldn't get a mask. Obviously anything covering your nose and mouth is going to be better than not having a covering over your nose and mouth.

I'm not saying a mask makes you impervious, but geez, c'mon.

 I’ll have to ask my husband, but if I recall correctly at his old workplace it was something like they put the mask on and spray saccharine to see if any gets through.  Since saccharine is so sweet even a tiny amount would be noticeable.  At his old workplace they did fit tests once a year, and certain facial hair was not allowed because it could interfere with the fit.

At his new workplace he was very surprised to see many people with full beards, though in the past few weeks almost everyone has shaved

 The first year that was the fit test my wife did.  They changed it the next year to something much fancier(it involved a hood and a computer), but perhaps that's because of the nature of her work.

  Some people btw couldn't get a mask to fit or had non conforming facial hair, between 3 brands and 4 sizes, so they ended up having to wear something called a PAPR, which they also had to be fitted for yearly.  


I asked my husband, apparently they use something called Bitrex, I was mistaken on the saccharine, though I could have sworn he mentioned saccharine at some point over the years.

When he was with UH special ops they used the PAPR when he transported a suspected Ebola case, which we now know didn’t have Ebola.  I’m now hearing an in depth explanation of how to properly clean it, the different part, etc. etc.   long face


sportsnut said:

 This is what I fear.  My ex, who still lives in Maplewood with my kids, was telling me about a party of some sort yesterday in her neighborhood.  My two boys who have been trying to go for walks were telling me that there were quite a few gatherings of more than 10 people that they encountered on their walk around the same neighborhood.  WTF people?

It's a manifestation of the "rules don't apply to me" thinking that we encounter complaining about drivers in town.

 Yes, I’ve seen them in parks. That’s what happens when the covidiots at the White House and Fox News spread their “news” 


I'm no statistician but for for what it's worth, new cases in most of the big European countries with substantial cases went down, sometimes significantly, between yesterday and the day before.  Even Italy.


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