Day: May 24, 2020

Yes, it is another damned COVID19 post. This pandemic is just tough to wrap your head around.

First of all, I had a nice 8.2 mile walk. I saw uplifting things (people out walking, practicing social distance out door activities). I saw some discouraging things too.

For one: I walked along Rohmann avenue until it turns into Swords. There was this HUGE half-barrier saying “road closed ahead”. Now someone coming from the closed part was just barreling down the street going way too fast as an older gentleman turned onto it..evidently the barrier and the excessive speed prevented the older man from seeing the speeding vehicle ..they didn’t collide but the speeder blew his horn and then PASSED the older guy (on a residential, 2 lane road. What a jerk!

And..a bit later, here comes another SUV at high speed around the curve just to see…YES THE ROAD WAS REALLY CLOSED. (yes, there were places to run onto the residential side streets but this vehicle wasn’t interested in that..they wanted to go straight through.

All of this I DO WHAT I WANT attitude is discouraging

Now…to the COVID-19..

1. Understanding how it affects the public requires some nuance. Yes, if there is a large gathering, large groups of people will NOT drop dead soon after. Instead, IF said large gathering had some infected people there, those infected people will spread it to many more and those will spread it to many more, and again and again…and when the net widens, eventually several vulnerable people will get caught up in it and end up very sick or dead. But we are talking about a somewhat delayed effect.

Think of a super slow moving fire. You might not have a fire right now, but if you have a bunch of old newspapers, magazines and oily rags..fire starts and then…that is where the trouble starts. And the fire isn’t just there but spreads elsewhere. And for COVID19, a large gathering is a bit like concentrated tinder.

2. Yes, the individual risk to younger people IS low. But risk is multiplied by exposure; not only intensity (say, a coughing, unmasked person in an enclosed space) but in duration(hours at a time vs. a few minutes?) So the young CAN suffer too. We are seeing it elsewhere. Don’t think it can’t happen here.

3. The data is messy, but there appears to be some solutions. Japan has focused on limiting the “3 c’s: closed spaces, crowded spaces, close contact”. Yes, there could be other factors (e. g. a different strain of virus).

4. But too many have this “freedom means I can do whatever I want and to hell with everyone else” concept.

And, oh, do they just show us:

5. And people continue to pile up combustible tinder…all it takes is a well placed match (e. g. an infected person or two) to light it up.

Again, most of these morons will be fine..a few will really get it, and most will allow the virus to spread through them.
Think of it this way; say 1 percent of a crowd of 10,000 has it. The R_0 for a crowded situation can be as high as 5-6. So, those 100 people spread it to 500 at at a 1 percent mortality rate, that is 5 deaths and perhaps 5 more seriously ill from that crowd. But THAT 100 newly infected go out and spread it, say each to 2 more (probably more than that..)

Of course, the extra spread will take some time to show up, as will the extra hospitalizations and deaths; it isn’t as if the people in those videos/photos are just going to keel over the next day.

Anyway, I think we might see a spike 2-3 weeks hence, as much as I’d love to see the virus just go away.