re: OT: Alabama Coronavirus Thread (see link in OP for case numbers and death totals in AL)

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Do you HAVE to have an incubation period or can you be exposed and be symptomatic a few days later

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The average incubation period is 5.2 days. 97.5% of patients show symptoms within the first 11.5 days. The upper limit is 14 days. It is possible to exhibit symptoms within as little as two days of exposure, but it's uncommon.

The most common guidelines for how long you are contagious (still not completely known) are either being fever free for 72 hours without the use of any fever reducing medication, or 14 days from the onset of symptoms.

We were projected to have 290 deaths by May 9 by the model. We have 289 today

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I expect this number to explode in the next 14 days.

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It will likely be the 14 days after that, so late May. Not all businesses took the bait immediately, but the ones that didn't are already starting to feel the pressure because they are losing customers to their competitors who did. Right now we are halfway between shutdown and business as usual, but it will be increasingly the latter over the next 2-3 weeks. Then the testing lag will catch up and daily cases will likely begin to increase again. Even though it would make Governor shite For Brains a lock for re-election I sincerely hope this doesn't all blow up in his face. I'd be shocked if it didn't though.

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If these states that are quickly reopening see large numbers by the end of May I could see stay at home orders being reissued until the end of summer.

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Which is really frustrating because some of these states are seeing their new daily cases flatline or begin to decrease and see that as evidence that the worst is behind us and therefore it is safe to reopen. Without a vaccine you need effective contact tracing to prevent large outbreaks though, and with hundreds of new daily cases still coming in contact testing simply isn't possible. Reopening for 2-4 weeks, seeing a resurgence in cases, and having to shut down again seems like it would be far more damaging to the economy than riding this out for another month until the new daily cases have dropped to 50 or less every day for a week. We were getting there, but aren't there yet.

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It will likely be the 14 days after that, so late May. Not all businesses took the bait immediately, but the ones that didn't are already starting to feel the pressure because they are losing customers to their competitors who did.

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Yeah this is more accurate. I was expecting 21 days to be when Kemp actually notices the uptick and realizes his error.

Your analysis is better because as you said people didn't bite the bait, but are slowly coming out more and more and without mask, gloves, etc.

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Even though it would make Governor shite For Brains a lock for re-election I sincerely hope this doesn't all blow up in his face. I'd be shocked if it didn't though.

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I think he killed his political future with this move.

It's literally impossible for a virus as contagious as this to just go away and not spread rampantly when people are out and about.

We slowed it down by literally avoiding each other and locking ourselves up.

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Two weeks ago, dozens of COVID-19 patients filled the beds at UAB hospital as infections in Alabama spiked. The sickest patients were placed in Dr. Steve Stigler’s medical intensive care unit, where most of them remained hooked up to ventilators as they fought for their lives.

At the time Stigler, the mild-mannered director of the MICU and a Birmingham native, spent long shifts garbed head-to-toe in protective gear, caring for critically ill patients and comforting family members by phone who were desperate for news. When he wasn’t on the ICU floor he could be found in his office, looking at ways to improve care and planning how his team could best meet healthcare scenarios that would have been unthinkable two months earlier.

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AL.com spoke with Stigler two weeks ago, just after the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital reached what would be its peak of 63 in-house COVID patients. He spoke with AL.com again this week, as the numbers have slowly declined to an average of about 35-40 patients

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AL.com

Are they really trying to stop the spread now or are they just going for herd immunity? Look, you have to be a complete idiot at this point to not realize that allowing people to mingle even a little is going to continue to spread it since you have at least 3 days and up to 14 days before you even know you have it to spread it to others. You have a couple of morons like Kemp and our own governor Destupid, (Desantis) that apparently either just don't get it or are doing what deep pockets are telling him/them. Florida's COVID19 task force was comprised of millionaire CEO's like Todd Jones, pres. of Publix, Josh D'Amoro, pres of Walt Disney World. There wasn't a medical professional on the task force unless you count John Decouris, pres of Tampa General Hospital, but he's not an MD. Now maybe they were getting advised by medicos but still, do you really think those guys know the plight of the common man, since they certainly didn't get the slot based on medical knowledge?

My own personal opinion is the leaders with any brains have just decided that we've flattened the curve enough to open the economy back up to try and stave off a depression. The rest like Kemp/Desantis are just doing what they're told to do. That is their only chance to save the economy and political careers, is to restart the economy. They are hoping they can keep the case load low enough that the medical system can handle the critical while the rest of us develop herd immunity if there is such a thing to this disease. They are also gambling that the late spring weather, especially in the South keeps the numbers down as people move outside more.

The danger in that is as Dr. Scott Gottlieb said last night on CNBC is we keep this thing smoldering just under the surface through the summer as we plug along with roughly 20,000 new cases nationwide per day only to have a new wave (or worse, a new mutation) explode when the first cooler weather gets here in the fall and we have to shut everything down again. Time will tell who's right.

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I mean, how long do you want us to stay shut down over this? A year? Two?

The seasonal flu is going to come back in the Fall like it always does. So should we then wait until next Spring when flu season is over?

At what point do you finally say it's okay to return to normal life?

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We have little choice but to begin to re-opening more and more in the coming weeks.

However, one thing that seems clear is the direct correlation of large gatherings to massive problems in what we've witnessed so far. The most notable large scale example is the immense effect of SF/Oakland limiting 50 then 25 then 10 person gatherings just 4-6 days before NYC did. Furthermore, an extremely high percentage of clusters are directly tied to funerals, band concerts, church services and other big events.

With things like that in mind, I sincerely worry how intelligent the re-openings will be carried out when we have such a large amount of people with some kind of "Ill show you I'll do what I want and this is no big deal" attitude.

That's my concern as well. I know we can't remain shut down, we have to reopen as much as we can as quickly as we can. But I've already seen stupid people that have flipped the switch all the way back to pre-COVID like nothing happened. Those are the people that will eventually cause another shut down. We have to do this with some common sense until we can easily beat this disease through vaccines or treatments. Maintain social distancing, crowds are an absolute NO, and if you're not feeling well, stay at home.

I don't know about y'all but I don't think I'm ready for being inside a restaurant or a movie theater or a casino. Maybe I would eat out at a restaurant with outdoor seating, but that's about it. A sick person who broadcast their droplets in an air-conditioned public place is like setting off a bomb in slow motion. We have to remain cautious or we go back to square one: total lockdown.

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I don't know about y'all but I don't think I'm ready for being inside a restaurant or a movie theater or a casino.

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I'd eat at a restaurant without a moment of hesitation. With good spacing I don't think there's any greater risk there than going to buy groceries.