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-   -   How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City? (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242036)

suburbanite May 16, 2020 12:58 PM

The largest gym chain Downtown here is talking about setting up isolation zones with tapes lines on the floor. You're going to have to schedule an appointment for your workout given this is usually a place that is operating over capacity from 11-1 and 5-7 on weekdays. Just shoot me now.

If you're going to a gym you're accepting that you're participating in a high-risk activity for transmission.

mhays May 16, 2020 3:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 8924016)
And then the case numbers will go up and people will panic.

It’s either 2 years of at least “social distancing”, which would be horrible, or we allow the virus to spread through the population and create immunity.

You do this while limiting the burden on the healthcare system by reducing the number of people requiring hospitalisation, especially intensive care. And you do that by telling those more likely to be vulnerable (old people, the immune-compromised people and probably the obese) to stay away from public places for the sake of their own health. Others will get Covid, but symptoms (if any) are likely to be mild enough that they just rest at home and get over it.

I want no part of “relaxed” restrictions if that means 4 tables spaced 8 feet apart in a restaurant that usually seats 30, no bars or pubs, cultural institutions closing (potentially for good), no gym, no face to face meetings (which are necessary for my business to actually earn revenue), and no travel.

You said "staying locked down for 2 years." Nobody predicts that.

Your ideas about how to protect the old are yours, not the experts'. I know that's painful.

Crawford May 16, 2020 3:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhays (Post 8924148)
Your ideas about how to protect the old are yours, not the experts'. I know that's painful.

There's no expert consensus on any of this. You could ask 100 experts and get 100 different nuanced answers.

mhays May 16, 2020 5:43 PM

Wrong. "Consensus" doesn't require that everyone have it exactly the same. The consensus is that shutdowns, masks, social distancing, etc., are highly effective. Only the degree is in question.

Pedestrian May 16, 2020 6:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by destroycreate (Post 8923446)
I'm admittedly getting impatient in CA. At first, it was about flattening the curve as to not overwhelm the hospitals which I supported. From what I can see, we've achieved that in California. The hospitals are nowhere near capacity. Now the narrative has shifted to having to achieve zero new infections in 14 days--in a state with nearly 40m residents--and saving all lives at the cost of shutting everything down and potentially putting everybody into poverty (which ironically will lead to thousands of deaths too). "Saving lives" seems to be conflated more and more with the hope of recording zero Coronavirus-related deaths. Sorry, but is that really even realistic?

I don't get it -- none of those measures will make the virus go away. As long as somebody on this planet has it, it's as contagious as it is, and there are no vaccines, we're going to deal with a constant risk of infection and unfortunately, fatalities. All we're doing at this point is prolonging the inevitable. The best we can do is mandate covered faces, wash our hands consistently, live as healthily as possible, reduce our social interactions, stay away from our elders, but try to live our lives. Require elders or immunocompromised to stay home, but allow restaurants/cafes to operate at reduced capacity etc. We need to accept this as our new normal. The current approach is way, way overboard.

Video Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0cqrzzDzLM

Looking on the most optomistic side, the scenario the people wanting to maintain lockdowns are aiming at is that if we get the R0 below 1 (in the Bay Area we are very close), the virus will actually nearly go away . . . gradually (the lower the R0, the faster). Then, at some point, new infections will be few enough that we can do effective tracking and quarantine of contacts and really control the disease.

Pedestrian May 16, 2020 6:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhays (Post 8924250)
Wrong. "Consensus" doesn't require that everyone have it exactly the same. The consensus is that shutdowns, masks, social distancing, etc., are highly effective. Only the degree is in question.

This is what people say, not necessarily what they do:

Quote:

Social Distancing Wanes as States Loosen Coronavirus Curbs
By Yan Wu, Max Rust and Randy Yeip
May 16, 2020 12:00 pm ET

After two months of social distancing, states across the country have begun relaxing stay-at-home measures. But the habits of U.S. residents, based on data from millions of cellphones, indicates Americans have been on the move even before official government orders eased restrictions.

Data from Unacast, a location-data firm, showed a steep decline in movement even before states implemented restrictions. As authorities have begun to lift those curbs and others prepare to do so, more Americans are coming into closer contact again.

The data measures the frequency at which two people come within 50 meters of each other for an hour or less, relative to a national baseline during the four weeks immediately preceding the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Unacast uses anonymized GPS location information from some 25 million U.S. mobile devices to estimate movements at the state and county levels.

Unacast Chief Executive and founder Thomas Walle said that while it is too early to know for certain, there could be many reasons for the increase in activity, from waning concerns about health-care systems collapsing to the lifting of restrictions in some areas.

Americans also might simply be tired of staying home.

“We see a spike in the weekends: People are off work, they want to socialize, they want to get out and get some fresh air,” Mr. Walle said. “The question is: Is this social-distancing fatigue? That’s what we hear a lot of discussions about from other companies and people using our data.”

Increased social activity could be most consequential in densely populated areas in and around major cities, where more frequent close encounters put people at higher risk of potential infection. Here is how habits have changed across the country, according to Unacast’s data:

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...653554/enhance
Darker red = greater relative positive change in encounters (darkest = increase by .3 or more, lightest = less than .05)

The data measures the frequency at which two people come within 50 meters of each other for an hour or less, relative to a national baseline during the four weeks immediately preceding the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. Unacast uses anonymized GPS location information from some 25 million U.S. mobile devices to estimate movements at the state and county levels.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-...=hp_lista_pos2

Pedestrian May 16, 2020 7:05 PM

Reopening criteria in SF Bay Area

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/12/05/...60/7/940x0.png
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...k-15260354.php

CaliNative May 16, 2020 7:48 PM

Many people (especially older) are afraid to take public transportation (buses, subways, light rail, planes etc) and until the outbreak subsides, the reluctance may continue. There are predictions of an increase in homeless, but so far no data.

CaliNative May 16, 2020 7:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 8924306)

Doc--What percentage of the population do you suspect have had or have the disease? Some estimates are maybe 5% or more in many areas (Bay area, maybe not--NYC, maybe). Assymptematic cases rarely get tested so we don't know. At what % does "herd immunity" start to reduce infections significantly--over 50% of pop?. Any tips on getting good surgical masks or even better N95s? Scary to go out & shop without a good mask. Of course the medical professionals should get the first crack at them, but older people should too Can masks from China be trusted? So many reports of flaws in them in the media. What is your opinion on when the national number of cases subsides--later this month? Looks like remdesivir helps but is in short supply.

10023 May 16, 2020 9:47 PM

East London is hopping. I went over there by bike today and parks were packed, pubs doing beers in plastic pint cups to go, lots of street food available. The idea that you can keep people locked down in summer is just foolish.

SIGSEGV May 16, 2020 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 8924405)
East London is hopping. I went over there by bike today and parks were packed, pubs doing beers in plastic pint cups to go, lots of street food available. The idea that you can keep people locked down in summer is just foolish.

All of that sounds fine as long as the parks aren't TOO crowded and people are wearing masks when getting close to others.

Maybe this pandemic will finally be the end of the US's ridiculous open container laws (I say this as someone who doesn't drink).

10023 May 16, 2020 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV (Post 8924426)
All of that sounds fine as long as the parks aren't TOO crowded and people are wearing masks when getting close to others.

Maybe this pandemic will finally be the end of the US's ridiculous open container laws (I say this as someone who doesn't drink).

Definitely no masks and not much social distancing. Hackney is basically Euro-Williamsburg and everyone is like 28. Really no concerns about the virus.

Pedestrian May 16, 2020 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliNative (Post 8924340)
Many people (especially older) are afraid to take public transportation (buses, subways, light rail, planes etc) and until the outbreak subsides, the reluctance may continue. There are predictions of an increase in homeless, but so far no data.

I am and you bet it will. I used to get 2 or 3 bad colds a winter in SF, riding Muni. Since I've been going to Tucson and not taking Muni, I can't recall having a cold. SFMuni is a breeding ground for germs.

Pedestrian May 16, 2020 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliNative (Post 8924346)
Doc--What percentage of the population do you suspect have had or have the disease? Some estimates are maybe 5% or more in many areas (Bay area, maybe not--NYC, maybe). Assymptematic cases rarely get tested so we don't know. At what % does "herd immunity" start to reduce infections significantly--over 50% of pop?. Any tips on getting good surgical masks or even better N95s? Scary to go out & shop without a good mask. Of course the medical professionals should get the first crack at them, but older people should too Can masks from China be trusted? So many reports of flaws in them in the media. What is your opinion on when the national number of cases subsides--later this month? Looks like remdesivir helps but is in short supply.

I really have no idea and niether does anyone else. To know, you'd have to do antibody testing on a scientific sample of the population you are interested in--with enough people in the sample to be statistically significant.

You may already be familiar with this:

Quote:

COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
Eran Bendavid, Bianca Mulaney, Neeraj Sood, Soleil Shah, Emilia Ling, Rebecca Bromley-Dulfano, Cara Lai, Zoe Weissberg, Rodrigo Saavedra-Walker, James Tedrow, Dona Tversky, Andrew Bogan, Thomas Kupiec, Daniel Eichner, Ribhav Gupta, John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya
2020.04.14

Abstract

Background Addressing COVID-19 is a pressing health and social concern. To date, many epidemic projections and policies addressing COVID-19 have been designed without seroprevalence data to inform epidemic parameters. We measured the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a community sample drawn from Santa Clara County. Methods On April 3-4, 2020, we tested county residents for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 using a lateral flow immunoassay. Participants were recruited using Facebook ads targeting a sample of individuals living within the county by demographic and geographic characteristics. We estimate weights to adjust our sample to match the zip code, sex, and race/ethnicity distribution within the county. We report both the weighted and unweighted prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. We also adjust for test performance characteristics by combining data from 16 independent samples obtained from manufacturer's data, regulatory submissions, and independent evaluations: 13 samples for specificity (3,324 specimens) and 3 samples for sensitivity (157 specimens). Results The raw prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in our sample was 1.5% (exact binomial 95CI 1.1-2.0%). Test performance specificity in our data was 99.5% (95CI 99.2-99.7%) and sensitivity was 82.8% (95CI 76.0-88.4%). The unweighted prevalence adjusted for test performance characteristics was 1.2% (95CI 0.7-1.8%). After weighting for population demographics of Santa Clara County, the prevalence was 2.8% (95CI 1.3-4.7%), using bootstrap to estimate confidence bounds. These prevalence point estimates imply that 54,000 (95CI 25,000 to 91,000 using weighted prevalence; 23,000 with 95CI 14,000-35,000 using unweighted prevalence) people were infected in Santa Clara County by early April, many more than the approximately 1,000 confirmed cases at the time of the survey.

Conclusions

The estimated population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection may be much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. More studies are needed to improve precision of prevalence estimates. Locally-derived population prevalence estimates should be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....14.20062463v2

But this was done in early April. Certainly it's more now.

In San Francisco, tests are now available to pretty much anybody who wants one though it seems likely that people would self-select for suspicion they are infected (symptoms, exposure to an infected person or something). The rate of positivity seems to have stabilized around 3% but that is for current infection using the PCR test and would miss people who were infected many weeks ago and recovered.

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...670308/enhance
https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/d96w-cdge

SIGSEGV May 16, 2020 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 8924446)
I really have no idea and niether does anyone else. To know, you'd have to do antibody testing on a scientific sample of the population you are interested in--with enough people in the sample to be statistically significant.

You may already be familiar with this:


https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....14.20062463v2

But this was done in early April. Certainly it's more now.

In San Francisco, tests are now available to pretty much anybody who wants one though it seems likely that people would self-select for suspicion they are infected (symptoms, exposure to an infected person or something). The rate of positivity seems to have stabilized around 3% but that is for current infection using the PCR test and would miss people who were infected many weeks ago and recovered.

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...670308/enhance
https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/d96w-cdge

They updated their initial numbers (after fucking up the binomial statistics), but their weighting is still very model dependent. It's probably best to just take the raw seroprevalence numbers to first order (an independent analysis gets somewhat close, see https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.e...-clara-county/ ). Their adjusted numbers are incompatible with excess mortality and seroprevalance data from other places (Spain, Italy, NYC).

I suspect the best estimator (will get you within a factor of 2 or so, due to various age distributions and levels of comorbidies) for a population will be to take the number of people who have died and multiply by ~100. So probably around 8 million people in the US (2.5% of the population) have probably been infected, with big error bars.

xzmattzx May 17, 2020 5:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by destroycreate (Post 8923446)
I'm admittedly getting impatient in CA. At first, it was about flattening the curve as to not overwhelm the hospitals which I supported. From what I can see, we've achieved that in California. The hospitals are nowhere near capacity. Now the narrative has shifted to having to achieve zero new infections in 14 days--in a state with nearly 40m residents--and saving all lives at the cost of shutting everything down and potentially putting everybody into poverty (which ironically will lead to thousands of deaths too). "Saving lives" seems to be conflated more and more with the hope of recording zero Coronavirus-related deaths. Sorry, but is that really even realistic?

I don't get it -- none of those measures will make the virus go away. As long as somebody on this planet has it, it's as contagious as it is, and there are no vaccines, we're going to deal with a constant risk of infection and unfortunately, fatalities. All we're doing at this point is prolonging the inevitable. The best we can do is mandate covered faces, wash our hands consistently, live as healthily as possible, reduce our social interactions, stay away from our elders, but try to live our lives. Require elders or immunocompromised to stay home, but allow restaurants/cafes to operate at reduced capacity etc. We need to accept this as our new normal. The current approach is way, way overboard.

Welcome to the dark side.... that is, compared to the people who say someone is a murderer for sitting down in the local park.

mrnyc May 17, 2020 6:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 8924274)
Video Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0cqrzzDzLM

Looking on the most optomistic side, the scenario the people wanting to maintain lockdowns are aiming at is that if we get the R0 below 1 (in the Bay Area we are very close), the virus will actually nearly go away . . . gradually (the lower the R0, the faster). Then, at some point, new infections will be few enough that we can do effective tracking and quarantine of contacts and really control the disease.

thats what cuomo has been asserting. thats why he wants to open nys a little, wait two weeks, see what happened, if there were uptics or anything, then open a little more. the handful of different sectors of the state could move along a little faster or slower. seems reasonable. also its good practice for controlling it if it comes roaring back in the fall.

Kngkyle May 17, 2020 7:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 8924274)
Looking on the most optomistic side, the scenario the people wanting to maintain lockdowns are aiming at is that if we get the R0 below 1 (in the Bay Area we are very close), the virus will actually nearly go away . . . gradually (the lower the R0, the faster). Then, at some point, new infections will be few enough that we can do effective tracking and quarantine of contacts and really control the disease.

Except all it takes is one person flying home from x-city to bring it all back, and then the time, money, and livelihoods ruined by the continued lockdown was all for nothing. The delay in symptoms makes contact tracing minimally useful, and basically impossible in a city like New York. How do you trace the hundreds or thousands of people you came into contact with on the subway? Especially when a significant number of the infected will never become symptomatic to even know they should be contact traced?

The more we learn the more evident our options are: herd immunity or vaccination. Eradication and contact tracing is not a realistic solution, and any actions in pursuit of that solution (like a continued lockdown) is folly, to say the least.

chris08876 May 17, 2020 9:30 AM

Found this interesting...


https://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj-wpe...c-56-15May.jpg
Credit: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/his...ics-deadliest/

Yuri May 17, 2020 10:36 AM

Are there any estimates for the total death count in the US by the end of 2020? 200,000, 300,000?

Even though the health system didn't collapse anywhere, daily numbers are insistently above 1,500 and as contention measures are incresingly unpopular, the virus will keep spreading there.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, down here attacks on quarentine by the president is much stronger than in the US. The 2nd Ministry of Health resigned during the pandemic.

In a more personal note, after working from home, three weeks of vacations, i finally came back to the office since Monday. The city is half-empty, but every single person uses masks.


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