Mathematical illiteracy will kill us:
In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms — dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their cubicles looking wan and tired.
“I’ve started to think it was the coronavirus,” said Julie Parks, a 63-year-old employee who was among the sick. “I may have had it, but I can’t be sure. It’s limbo.”
Now that there is evidence that there were some earlier deaths than previously reported, it won’t be long before every idiot who had a cold in January and February is convinced they had the virus and are now immune.
It should surprise no one that there were cases that were previously undiscovered. The virus was around for months in China prior to offical cases here, and there had to have been a few here and there. That doesn’t mean that is was widespread and everyone who coughed in January had it. It should not surprise anyone that a nation full of people who don’t understand compound interest can’t fathom exponential growth, but here we are.
TL;DR: Stay the fuck home.
Mike in NC
Some experts think we might be dealing with this thing in some form for at least 5 more years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: We are still dealing with bubonic plague in some form.
smedley the uncertain
Good morning. If I didn’t have a snotty. nose and sore throat in December or January, I would really worry. It’s an annual occurrence. Cheers
HumboldtBlue
I flew round trip from Humboldt to San Francisco to San Diego in late January and the first topic of conversation once I got in the car after landing was the virus.
I had bought a package of baby wipes with me and I used them liberally while in the airport and on the plane.
I can still smell that nasty scent.
It was there, it was on the news, it was reported and it was nascent and even then the throwaway comment was about what happens when Trump meets disaster.
As we expected, we got fucked.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Shit. Awful bad dreams.
This anxiety is killing me.
MoxieM
It’s all the Europeans’ fault. They punctuate numbers backwards. Listen to Ch.Merkel describe the exponential spread of the disease, and you will hear her say, “1,1” or Eins Komma Eins for a ten percent rate, and then, “1,2” (Eins Komma Zwei) for a twenty percent rate. If they would only use periods (punkt!) like Americans do to indicate decimals, we wouldn’t be so confused, right? Doch? Problems solved. heh. //not
HumboldtBlue
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It’s a motherfucker, that’s why we have these two.
Another Scott
@Mike in NC: There are lots of scary predictions out there.
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/04/q1-gdp-forecasts-around-7-saar_24.html
Click over for embedded links.
We have to be smart to get through this. Hang in there, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
ziggy
Baud, right again (2020).
Here’s a positive spin–if these reports are true, and the number of previously exposed is much higher than we thought, then the virus is also much less deadly than portrayed. What makes it scary is that it is so lethal for some groups. Once we figure out why, and how to treat it, it will lose a lot of it’s teeth. If we do have a lot of people with seroconversion, widespread plasma therapy may become viable.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I had the same thing in February. Lasted three weeks and ironically only ended two days before the emergency order came. Been waiting to see when they start the anti body testing to find out if that’s what it was. Keep in mind before you all start with “Oh you’re just over reacting” my company is off shored to a factory in Wuhan, and there were many engineers and mangers traveling back and forth to China October to February .
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Post title totally reminded me of that crappy Love Boat reboot/sequel series. It screams late 90s (not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s very dated)
Yutsano
@Another Scott:
…
Shit.
We’re ungestuppt until November aren’t we?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ziggy:
Not sure I like this phrasing. Even on the lower end, the CFR is probably a few orders of magnitude more deadly than the seasonal flu
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@ziggy: The virus is much less deadly than the press makes it out to be, more like a .05% death rate going by places that did wide spread testing of the population. It’s looks so horrible because the only people who get the test are those who are in the hospital to begin with, and even then maybe not. Otherwise we don’t give a shit about what happens other countries because America is to special. The problem is it’s incredibly virulent so it can infect an entire population in 20 days. .05% is something like 1.6 million Americans dying in one month.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
For comparison, seasonal influenza’s CFR is estimated to be around 0.01%. You’re correct that nobody has any immunity to it so that’s what makes it so dangerous. It’s fairly infectious (more than the flu) and it can put like 15-20% of those it infects in the hospital.
Many people that die who were seemingly healthy may not have been. However, that’s cold comfort. Lots of people could be walking around and think they’re healthy when they’re not
terry chay
From genetic mutations we know the date the virus made the jump to humans is late November 2019. China acknowledged the virus on January 2-4, 2020. So it was around for about a month.
With exponential growth rates, the virus was almost non existent in the US in January.
What you got in late January is the same thing I got in early January: the H1N1 strain of the flu. Idiots like me didn’t bother to get vaccinated and that strain is very deadly as well as there is relatively no immunity unless you’ve been getting flu shots. regularly. I had 105° fever and was delirious for days, onset was basically less than 24 hours after my first dry cough symptoms, I recovered in a week and then had a secondary viral infection for a couple weeks after. Almost textbook.
Ive been fending this bulkshit for months now. Ever fucking conservative leaning person I know, or people who work with conservatives thinks their cold or flu was the rona. Here is a tip, if you caught the rona then odds are a close family member or acquaintance was hospitalized with it. If hp they weren’t it was a cold or flu.
In San Francisco, where I live, only about 6% of people tested last month had COVID-19. In South Bay it was higher 8%. 100% of those tested EXHIBITED SYMPTOMS. From that you can infer that at least 9 in 10 cases are just a bad cold or flu.
From those I know who have personally caught COVID-19, I can say with certainty they knew it when it happened! even if they got away with a “mild” symptom (which sounds to me worse than the flu I caught TBH), someone they knew got it BAD or died.
PJ
@terry chay: I’ve read reports that anywhere from between 25% – 75% of people who test positive are asymptomatic. (here is one article: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21230301/coronavirus-symptom-asymptomatic-carrier-spread)
Some of these could be false positives but it’s clear that way more people have been infected than have been tested. In NY, where I live, the average (non-connected, non-Richie Rich) person is only tested if they present at a hospital with lung oxygen capacity < 90%. Anything else and they are sent home, and if they die, they are never tested.
People I know who tested positive (connections) and were sick, but not hospitalized, described it as anything from being like an extremely bad flu to a five-day hangover.
HumboldtBlue
I ain’t got nuttin’ to add on genetic mutation but I gotta say that these hands made a difference.
Bruuuuce
As if the novel coronavirus and Covid-19 aren’t enough to worry about, Reuters warns that buildings that have stood idle for three weeks or more may well present risks for Legionnaire’s disease when they reopen. I’m sure some building owners will be conscientious and flush and clean, but I have no doubt we’ll see some outbreaks, just to be the cherry on the cake :-(
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I’ve said it before, and will expand on it. The average person should pretty much ignore the stock market and GDP and some other measures of the economy.
The Calculated Risk blog citation makes the following point:
Thing is, the economy didn’t collapse. We shut it down. And even though many store owners have reported that their business declined by 80 percent or more, and even though there are weird shortages of toilet paper, people are not starving.
A lot of the conventional measures of the economy don’t tell us very much. There is a lot of idle capacity waiting to be put to use again.
Some of the economists on programs like NPR’s Marketplace are beginning to pick up on this, and are formally talking about new ways of looking at the economy. Things like the recent strange “drop” of oil prices below zero helped focus their attention.
Another strange thing. Some businesses are outlining how they may operate with social distancing rules and other measures in place. Worse case, I think there may be odd spikes in employment and unemployment. Some companies may find that they can operate fine with greatly reduced staff. This obviously is terrible, but it may be offset by significant increases in employment in other industries.
But the bottom line is that even though the post pandemic world may not be very pleasant in many ways, and GDP comparisons to prior years will look incredibly strange, the economy itself may actually perk up significantly and the real world will be doing better than the numbers used to reflect economic activity.
Mnemosyne
@terry chay:
I did get my flu shot and ended up getting the B flu in early January. It was especially bad this year and the flu shot didn’t match up with it very well.
I’m pretty sure it was NOT Covid-19 because it only lasted about a week (though the cough lingered a bit longer). It was a little nerve-wracking, though, because I had one of the highest fevers I’ve ever had as an adult (102.9) and it was very hard to get it down. That may be why some people think they had Covid-19 — the B flu had some very similar symptoms, especially the fever.
HumboldtBlue
As much as we agonize over the outcome there’s still only one way out.
Gotta love a guitar.
Ten Bears
I had a flu-like episode in late November. Early Nov. the neighbor’s business partner came home from a couple of weeks in floriduh with (drumroll) a “flu”. Late Sept. early Oct. all e-vape products were “temporarily” banned due to their alleged culpability in a SARS-like outbreak in the heartland. This thing, the Trump Plague, both the bug, the Trump Bug, Trump Virus, and the coverup, the denial of culpability in the Trump Plague, have been with us longer than the … uhhmmm, official narrative would have it.
cain
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m sorry my man. I don’t have any cures for this, but we will get through it somehow.
CaseyL
This virus keeps coming up with scary shit. I read today that some people who’ve recovered, particularly people otherwise young and healthy, are up and dying a couple weeks later from strokes! That seems to tie in with the blood clot issue. The clots form in the lungs and travel up into the brain, maybe.
What other new and exciting ways will COVID-19 come up with to kill people, even after they think they’re over it?
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ve had more vivid dreams since the lockdown. I’ve read that this is common.
You just have to try to hang in there.
Mnemosyne
@Ten Bears:
It was most likely the B flu (late-season flu strain) since that was particularly nasty this year, even for those of us who got flu shots. Sorry to disappoint you.
rikyrah
They should still get tested
rikyrah
@CaseyL: I
I hear you. Terrifying???
Villago Delenda Est
Unless the parasite overclass is able to hoard wealth the way they used to, as far as the Village is concerned, the economy is cratered.
rikyrah
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I don’t believe people are overreacting. Get tested.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, Donald is in no danger, then.
rikyrah
I have to go into the office on Tuesday.
Sigh??
VOR
If we had an actual testing program then we would know the truth. But we have a President who actively discouraged any attempts to find the truth. States were a bit slow because all their pandemic response plans assumed the Federal government (CDC, NIH, FDA, HHS, FEMA, etc…) would be helping.
TriassicSands
I posted this in a dead thread, but I need an answer since my regular physician, Dr. Trumpenstein, is no longer willing to discuss this subject. Go figure.
Damn, yesterday, after hearing Dr. Trumpenstein’s comments, I swallowed a whole UV tanning lamp! Now, I find out he was being sarcastic? At least I haven’t plugged it in yet.
Q: Do you think I’ll need a laxative to pass it?
Sincerely,
A Liberty University Med Student
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Ugh. I hope you have a mask you can wear. Gloves are actually less helpful than people think, so don’t worry too much about those. And wash your hands obsessively! ?
Brachiator
@TriassicSands:
Drink Milk of Magnesia. You’ll glow while you go.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Gloves only work if you change them after touching any surface every time and then washing your hands thoroughly after you take them off. Otherwise you might as well not bother.
Mohagan
@HumboldtBlue: Thanks for the trip back down to the Fillmore. Wonderful.
Retrosam
Hey
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
you are spreading dangerous misinformation. First, in countries that did widespread screening of all comers (not just people with symptoms) like Iceland, the CFR was 0.3-0.5%. Second, even if we buy the theory that 15% of people in NYC had the virus at some point (which is based on very flimsy evidence), the CFR comes out to 0.5%, I have no idea where you’re getting 0.05% from.
Also, the CFR for the seasonal flu is 0.1%, not 0.01% as another poster claims.
ballerat
@Brachiator: Huh. Me too. They’ve been markedly different.
Have you read anything about why that might be so?
MisterForkbeard
@CaseyL: I heard about this. The incident rate is really low – something like 2x as many people under 50 dying of strokes as they usually do.
That sounds bad, but it meant that you has something like 2 people die in a country instead of the normal 1. Per month.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Yup. For the things people think they need them for (door handles, etc) you’re better off with a Kleenex or a paper towel that you can throw away when you get to your destination. Otherwise, you’re just walking around spreading germs and getting them all over your gloves and everything you touch. Plus most people take their gloves off wrong and end up getting the stuff they were trying to avoid onto their hands anyway.
I mean, maybe they’re a good idea if you have to ride the bus or a subway, but take them off when you reach your destination and immediately wash your damn hands.
cain
I have not had the flu in years maybe in over a decade. I have never had a flu shot at any time. I have an over active immune system – remember that joke by Rodney Dangerfield where he said his football team was so badass that after they sacked the quarterback they went after his family? That is my immune system. (my immune system went after my thyroid!)
If there is any vaccination for COVID, I will be first in line. I’ve barely fought off colds.. but I have succumbed to it – once every two years.
Brachiator
@ballerat:
A recent LA Times story noted the following about vivid dreams.
I don’t know. One thing for me, though. Since I am working more at home, I actually have more time to sleep. And this is magnified by having fewer places to go. So even though I might worry more about things like the pandemic and Trump’s godawful incompetence, I can sleep a little longer and more soundly. So maybe I can also dream a bit more.
smike
@Brachiator:
So Rubin Naiman, Ph.D., sees a correlation. Maybe he should study that?
MomSense
@terry chay:
I had H1N1 in 2009. I remember my kids were all home sick and I could hear them moaning because the body aches were so bad. We all needed drinks and Advil and I crawled to the kitchen because I felt too weak to walk.
That was no ordinary flu.
daveNYC
The idea that this was widespread in the wild back in December or January makes no sense. Wuhan, Italy, Spain, and NYC have show us what that would have meant. This belief is just an excuse for people to demand their old lifestyle back.
James E Powell
Have you all heard the new Rolling Stones song?
Sounds like it was made for our current situation. I’m pretty sure the video was, but Keith says the song was recorded last summer.
MomSense
Meanwhile Megan McArdle is wondering if NOISE may be a factor in COVID because infections are happening at choir practice, soccer games, and restaurants. Also too New York City.
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
I see that Megan McArdle got the same kind of science education as Donald Trump.
MomSense
@James E Powell:
I think they started it a year ago and then when the shit hit the fan they decided they had to finish it and release it. Not sure how much was recorded remotely.
NotMax
@MomSense
Cancer from windmills, Covid from noise.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
//
JPL
@MomSense: That’s for real? wow
Shalimar
@MomSense: She seriously thinks noise is what spreads a virus at choir practice? She could google research that theory and refute it in less time than it took her to post it.
Amir Khalid
The daily Covid-19 update thread should be up any minute now.
raven
@Amir Khalid: oh swell
Sloane Ranger
Although the odds on any single person having had COVID-19 in January are low it is greater than zero so people should get tested for antibodies in due course, just in case, but continue to follow guidelines, especially as we don’t know how long immunity lasts or if it exists at all.
arrieve
I’ve been telling myself I probably had it already because otherwise I would be going crazier than I already am. But I am in New York City, where the antibody testing is estimating that 21% of us were infected. In early March I lost my sense of smell for several days. It was before that was reported as a symptom, so I didn’t think anything about it. (I also had a dry cough that lasted a couple of weeks but think that was allergies.) So now I wonder. If I could know for certain I already had it, it wouldn’t change much about my day to day life, but I’d be a little more willing to go outside, and a lot less anxious when I’m inside.
Amir Khalid
@arrieve:
I’d still exercise caution when going out and about. The Guardian’s coronavirus liveblog reports on a WHO statement:
JAFD
@Brachiator: @Brachiator: Or mix your Milk of Magnesia with orange juice and vodka…
That’s a Philips Screwdriver.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Your numbers are off. Assuming a population of 320 million Americans, 1.6 million dead would be a CFR of 0.5%, not 0.05%.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
And influenza’s CFR is more like 0.1%, not 0.01%, isn’t it?
FridayNext
Okay, i’ll be that guy.
Mathematical illiteracy is called innumeracy.
Skepticat
And those of us who suffer from it are innumerable.
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: But Yersinia pestis (the causative agent of bubonic plague) in the wild has never developed resistance to standard antibiotics including streptomycin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol. Diagnosed early enough (& swollen lymph nodes are kindasorta a “tell”) & appropriately treated, it’s no longer a serious threat to life.
Uncle Cosmo
You clearly do not understand what “order of magnitude” means. It’s a fancy way of saying “a factor of ten.” One OO = factor of 10, two OOM = 10 x 10 = factor of 100.
Seasonal flu deaths run about 0.1% of victims. For COVID-19 to be even two OOMs more deadly than seasonal flu, the fatality rate would have to be 10% – which no one has seen outside of the most high-risk groups (elderly, pre-existing conditions [especially high blood pressure, if recent reports are accurate]).
(Sheesh, does I hafta splane everything to youse bozos?)
Chris T.
@Shalimar: “Noise” is of course ridiculous. Speaking or singing, however, is less so: we make vocal sounds by vibrating the vocal cords, which flings little bits of wet stuff into the exhaled air.
Loud speech is probably more significant since it’s easy to forget the old “say it not spray it” rule…
Gvg
@arrieve: it depends on how crowded it is outside where you live, but information I have seen thinks you are better off outside than in closed buildings. Sunlight is a very good disinfective and closed air conditioning systems recirculate viruses generally, with a few studies so far showing the restaurant and the call center were infection centers. You should be ok in your home, but shopping is a definite risk.
i go out in my backyard several times a day. My 76 year old mother has a acre garden she is obsessed with anyway. She also already was a mailorder plantaholic, mostly bulbs. Spends most of the day in the yard.
WaterGirl
@JAFD: That’s a good one!
arrieve
@Gvg: I live in New York, so my backyard is the front sidewalk. I think I’m going to take a walk today anyway because I need to get outside, but I hate walking with a mask on.
Alex
What’s so dangerous is the combination of innumeracy and wishful thinking. My dad has been locked down since mid February because he has at least 8 serious risk factors. Now he’s sure he had it already and he wants to go out. I had to say “If you’d gotten it, you’d already be dead.”
Alex
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Another reason to avoid chloroquine— vivid dreams. People on malaria prophylaxis often have to go off it because they can’t distinguish dream from reality.
different-church-lady
@FridayNext: Saved me the the trouble.
different-church-lady
@Uncle Cosmo:
Well after all, it is a thread about “mathematical illiteracy.”
Michael Cain
It would be nice to have an antibody test generally available. The symptoms of the respiratory gunk I had for three weeks starting in mid-January this year was different than the stuff I normally have every 2-3 years. No sore throat, much deeper cough, and then very painful back spasms to top it off (none of them ever seem to give me a fever). The cough was bad enough the second time I went to see the doc that he didn’t trust his ears and sent me across the hall for a chest x-ray (lungs were clear). I know having covid-19 at that time would have been quite unusual, but there’s a growing pile of evidence that it was loose in the metro area by then.
Since I can stay at home, though, I am.
chopper
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
more than .1% of new york’s population is already dead from coronavirus. even if literally every new yorker has already been exposed (in which case new cases would be zero), which is absolutely not at all correct, the CFR would be over .1%.
PenAndKey
@Michael Cain: in late January a severe flu swept through my work. We had extreme lethargy, widespread fevers, and a deep lower chest cough without any other apparent respiratory issues. I caught it and a week later so did my wife. Our ten year old son, however, never presented symptoms. I strongly suspect but can’t confirm that it wasn’t actually the flu. We briefly considered that it might have been RSV but the symptoms really didn’t quite match.
Why? Because both my wife and I have been religiously up to date on every available flu vaccine for the last 11 years, the disease progression at work and my house followed a 7-10 lag time, and because the symptoms are a pretty darn good match for what’s been reported. Also, and most importantly, the first person in my office to get sick was a shipping clerk who had just come home from a week long family vacation to Bejing.
So yeah, I’m pretty sure she was a starting point vector for my little slice of the I-90 corridor. And that she did so in late January through early February. We are still following all precautions all the same. Without an actual antibody test to confirm previous infection that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. BUT if I do end up getting a test and showing a prior infection it’s not going to be a mystery to trace it.
FredW
From mid December into the first week on January I had some sort of bug, totally unlike my usual winter colds. Dry coughs, low to medium fever, achey all over and I was very listless (according to She Who Must Be Obeyed). When I first read of the COVID-19 symptoms, I did think “sounds like what I had”
Now I am not saying I had it, or that there is some conspiracy — I’m not in the tin foil hat brigade. But when there is a reliable home antibody test, I will buy one and test myself, mostly for curiosity’s sake.
Two other data points: I did a flu shot last fall. And in early December I flew from Los Angeles to Amsterdam.
chopper
@FredW:
i had the same thing mid december. i assumed it was RSV or some such; it seemed to be everywhere. i doubt very, very much it was coronavirus. if it was that widespread already then there would have been a noticeable spike in deaths starting at the end of december.
LuciaMia
Well, Im one of those ‘idiots’ who thinks they may have had it. Only this was in the second week of March. At the time, still thought it was too early. But now when theres evidence it may have been in the country earlier than thought. And no, I dont fancy Im now magically immune and can go out where I please. It would take an antibody test to show that and…oh, right, theres few of those to be had. I would only like to know so if there was any way to help, via donating plasma.
James E Powell
@FredW:
I had the exact same symptoms beginning the day our school let out and ending just before school was back in. Spent almost the entire three weeks in bed. At times the coughing fits got so bad I was close to passing out. (Dr at the ER said, “Yeah, that’ll happen”) Last time I was that sick for that long was pneumonia in 1982.
Like you, when this COVID-19 thing was described, I thought it matched what I had. People say no, I had a more well known kind of flu. And I think @chopper: made a good point. There was no spike in deaths or even hospitalizations back then. So I’m inclined to believe that it was not COVID-19.
JaneE
Around here they are still only testing those with symptoms. Small county, basically one place to get the tests at our hospital. They are reporting a little less than 10% positives. That is a total of 247 tests, that represent testing maybe 2% of total population for the county. A really nasty flu that hung on for weeks had been going around starting October-November, long before Covid-19, and probably accounts for at least some of the people negative for covid results.
MoxieM
@NotMax: At least they’ve not reverted to Miasma theory. Or balancing Bodily Humors. Yet.
Mai naem mobile
My one sister came down with a pretty bad upper respiratory infection in Feb(I think mid February.) It was really really bad. My sister is one of those people who will work through a cold but this one really hit her hard. A lot of congestion and a bad cough but no shortness of breath. My other sister traveled internationally in November(not China) and came home with a really bad URI as well which took her a while to kick. Her husband got the same bug. I had an URI late Feb but it wasn’t that bad. A cough but not horrible and bad headaches but I felt really wiped out. I assumed it was a sinus infection. I’ve been looking for an antibody lab and saw private lab advertising an antibody lab for $249. I was totally willing to pay up to $100 OOP but $249 is too steep for me, especially when you consider that they don’t even have one that’s real accurate. Lot of false negatives and false positives.
Mai naem mobile
I have a friend whose nephew had a really bad upper respiratory infection right around Christmas. He’s in his early 20s and had just started his job so didn’t have his insurance year(Normal talking walking healthy young guy.) Anyhow he went to an urgent care who sent him home because they didn’t see anything. He ended up going to the ER because his legs were hurting him a lot. Long story short he ended up getting both legs amputated and was on dialysis for a while and to top off this shitshow he’s legally blind now. And,oh yes, his new job was at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. BTW The first known COVID19 death in AZ was an airport worker.
evodevo
@MomSense: Yep. My husband and I did too…we caught it because we flew out to TX to see the son & family, and started feeling really weird right after we got back, then we came down with fever and cough. We were still coughing badly and really tired 6 weeks later…took forever to get over it…won’t forget that anytime soon.
Ella in New Mexico
@terry chay:
Not to doubt you, but how do you know that it was the H1N1 strain of the flu? Did you get a test confirming that diagnosis? We had a very mild flu season this year, and at least in my area of the country we had more Flu A and B than any H1N1 type. We still put H1N1 components in many of our annual vaccines in addition to the others we predict will be showing up that year, which helps with herd immunity and thus reduced rates of transmission. But if you’ve not gotten vaccines for a while, it’s possible-I’m just curious.
So, The New York times–yeah, yeah I know y’All hate them but I can read it free thanks to my access to our university medical library–has been putting up great interactive maps during this outbreak. One of them is a visual of travel in and out of Wuhan in the weeks after what we believe was the initial outbreak.
Tons of Chinese travelers were coming into the US during December, long before we we had our first confirmed outbreak but it was spreading fast in China. Even in late January, after Trump’s order to close the country to China, we had thousands of flight to over 17 cities in the US, heavily concentrated to the first urban areas that got slammed–NY, CA, WA.
We also know now we have had likely community transmission of corona, as well as undiagnosed/unrecognized illnesses and deaths, which we are unable to attribute to travel or direct exposures far earlier than we thought we had them.
There is absolutely no reason to assume that small pockets or random people were not sick with this, especially in those urban areas crowded settings–like a call center, meat packing plant, or Amazon warehouse–far, far earlier this year
This would be important at that point we begin to be able to to serological testing and epidemiological analysis of just how this virus took off.