Coronavirus pandemic

[RobbieL2415]

I can't see movie theaters going away, not when you had movies in the last three decades raking in over Billion in ticket sales over the past three decades.  It might be hard to get investors to do big budget movies in the same scale we're used to.  I think that opens the door for some more creative newer movies that have a lower budget but have to take chances to compete for audiences.  Downloads will have their place but I can't see people wanting to stay home forever when going to movie on a night out or day off has been such an ingrained thing to do for so long.

movie ticket sales peaked around 2002 and are on decline. Many people predicted business will be losing steam with all those home options, and now that decay can accelerate even further. If anything, I can envision movie theaters becoming more premium experience for old timers (it already goes premium way with 3D, IMAX, some super-duper sound and whatever else) - and, coincidently, fewer people in the room, and likely fewer venues. Something along the lines of live theater being premium experience.

There was a large consolidation in the number of multiplexes in my area.  Something on the order of a 50% reduction in the number of locations.  This resulted in the remaining locations being expanded with deluxe theaters and IMAX.

The only real big player in CT was National Amusements, who operated Showcase Cinemas and Multiplex Cinemas.  Now they've been rebranded as Cinemark.
AMC has moved into a couple of older NA locations and there's a few drafthouse-style theaters in Hartford.

I remember 15 years ago weekends were basically dedicated to catching up on new releases.  Most of the people that go now are from poorer neighborhoods or are just weird in general.  The food is never reasonably priced. Tickets are only reasonably priced on Tuesday.  People are on their phones or being loud.  It's just not a lucrative experience.

I think a bigger draw away from film as a media is that television has become more cinematic in the way the teleplays are written and the directing and lighting styles.  Since streaming services don't have commercial breaks there's more time that can be dedicated to the plot and there's no interruption.

[bing101]

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/organizer-of-downtown-san-diego-covid-19-protest-faces-arrest-possible-charges


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-27/newsom-sued-by-california-residents-demanding-end-to-stay-at-home-rules


Now the leaders of the Sacramento and San Diego Shelter in place protests sues Governor Newsom over free speech violations and "Rights Infringement" issues in response to the Mask and Shelter in place orders of California.

[Max Rockatansky]

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/organizer-of-downtown-san-diego-covid-19-protest-faces-arrest-possible-charges


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-27/newsom-sued-by-california-residents-demanding-end-to-stay-at-home-rules


Now the leaders of the Sacramento and San Diego Shelter in place protests sues Governor Newsom over free speech violations and "Rights Infringement" issues in response to the Mask and Shelter in place orders pf California.

Some people seem hell bent on trying to get the police to martyr them with an arrest.  From what I've seen almost every police department in California won't actually go ahead with arrests and charges on Stay At Home Orders  unless pushed to no other recourse.  Even still it seems most departments will give tons of warnings to disperse or not gather before bothering with charges.  That's not even close to the characteristic of a "Police State."  

Besides it's not the police who are really deciding on public health policies in California.  A more effective "protest"  would probably be social media based and not something my Mom would have done in the 1960s. 

[Roadgeekteen]

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado joined a western states pact to pledge to use science to fight covid-19. Take notes Georgia...

[RobbieL2415]

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/organizer-of-downtown-san-diego-covid-19-protest-faces-arrest-possible-charges


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-27/newsom-sued-by-california-residents-demanding-end-to-stay-at-home-rules


Now the leaders of the Sacramento and San Diego Shelter in place protests sues Governor Newsom over free speech violations and "Rights Infringement" issues in response to the Mask and Shelter in place orders pf California.

I don't see how you can get away with prosecuting them for protesting.  It would have to be for the social distancing.

Again, it would really help if the governor said, "provided they follow social distancing guidelines, nothing in this order shall preclude or infringe on an individual's basic Consititutional rights."

[Max Rockatansky]

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado joined a western states pact to pledge to use science to fight covid-19. Take notes Georgia...

Given how much heat California is getting right now for staying almost fully restricted it's not really clear at the moment if who really has it right.  That probably won't be known or fully understood probably for at least a year.  Los Angeles County is half the issue in California but there is a blanket policy for everyone else in the state right now. 

[bing101]

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/organizer-of-downtown-san-diego-covid-19-protest-faces-arrest-possible-charges


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-27/newsom-sued-by-california-residents-demanding-end-to-stay-at-home-rules


Now the leaders of the Sacramento and San Diego Shelter in place protests sues Governor Newsom over free speech violations and "Rights Infringement" issues in response to the Mask and Shelter in place orders pf California.

Some people seem hell bent on trying to get the police to martyr them with an arrest.  From what I've seen almost every police department in California won't actually go ahead with arrests and charges on Stay At Home Orders  unless pushed to no other recourse.  Even still it seems most departments will give tons of warnings to disperse or not gather before bothering with charges.  That's not even close to the characteristic of a "Police State."  

Besides it's not the police who are really deciding on public health policies in California.  A more effective "protest"  would probably be social media based and not something my Mom would have done in the 1960s.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tony-spell-louisiana-pastor-house-arrest-church-services-coronavirus-lockdown/
All Law Enforcement all over the nation can do is investigate the leaders of the protests who are inciting the social distancing violations.


https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/louisiana-pastor-blows-social-distancing-to-hold-sunday-service/

[Bruce]

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado joined a western states pact to pledge to use science to fight covid-19. Take notes Georgia...

Given how much heat California is getting right now for staying almost fully restricted it's not really clear at the moment if who really has it right.  That probably won't be known or fully understood probably for at least a year.  Los Angeles County is half the issue in California but there is a blanket policy for everyone else in the state right now. 

Restrictions only work at a large scale, so limiting it to just the LA metro area would be pointless. People would travel out and bring the virus with them (as we've seen with rural cases in Washington, or the food plant shutdowns in the Midwest).

[Duke87]

Restrictions only work at a large scale, so limiting it to just the LA metro area would be pointless. People would travel out and bring the virus with them (as we've seen with rural cases in Washington, or the food plant shutdowns in the Midwest).

Well... or you restrict travel so people can't do that.

[Max Rockatansky]

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/organizer-of-downtown-san-diego-covid-19-protest-faces-arrest-possible-charges


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-27/newsom-sued-by-california-residents-demanding-end-to-stay-at-home-rules


Now the leaders of the Sacramento and San Diego Shelter in place protests sues Governor Newsom over free speech violations and "Rights Infringement" issues in response to the Mask and Shelter in place orders pf California.

Some people seem hell bent on trying to get the police to martyr them with an arrest.  From what I've seen almost every police department in California won't actually go ahead with arrests and charges on Stay At Home Orders  unless pushed to no other recourse.  Even still it seems most departments will give tons of warnings to disperse or not gather before bothering with charges.  That's not even close to the characteristic of a "Police State."  

Besides it's not the police who are really deciding on public health policies in California.  A more effective "protest"  would probably be social media based and not something my Mom would have done in the 1960s.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tony-spell-louisiana-pastor-house-arrest-church-services-coronavirus-lockdown/
All Law Enforcement all over the nation can do is investigate the leaders of the protests who are inciting the social distancing violations.


https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/louisiana-pastor-blows-social-distancing-to-hold-sunday-service/

They probably don't even want.  Most departments don't want to waste a ton of time on misdemeanor crimes that will he cited down anyways. 

[Max Rockatansky]

Meat Processing plants ended up being declared essential via the Defense Production Act:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-sign-order-keeping-meat-182402327.html

[jakeroot]

Restrictions only work at a large scale, so limiting it to just the LA metro area would be pointless. People would travel out and bring the virus with them (as we've seen with rural cases in Washington, or the food plant shutdowns in the Midwest).

Well... or you restrict travel so people can't do that.

I shall imagine that it's easier to say "if you're in [state], don't do [this]", rather than saying "if you fall inside this imaginary line, don't do [this]". Which is exactly why things like metro areas aren't be blocked off. No one knows where they start and end, apart from those delineated by obvious geography like rivers (and even those are typically state or county boundaries, which don't always correspond to metro areas).

[oscar]

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado joined a western states pact to pledge to use science to fight covid-19. Take notes Georgia...

Well, Georgia says it's using science too. But science isn't all that matters.

FWIW, I'm not crazy about Georgia (and South Carolina) not just adopting liberal statewide policies, but also preempting local restrictions to address things like the outbreak in the Albany GA area. Other states, like Tennessee, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, have liberal statewide policies but are allowing local governments to act, or in South Dakota's case putting in a targeted state order to deal with a meatpacking plant outbreak in the southeastern corner of the state while largely leaving alone the distant northwestern corner where there are no cases so far.

[LM117]

4 people from the Flu Klux Klan ReOpen NC rally were arrested yesterday, one of which broke the gate at the governor's mansion. They look so proud in their mugshots.

https://www.wral.com/gate-at-governor-s-mansion-damaged-during-reopennc-rally-police-say/19076638/

[Max Rockatansky]

Restrictions only work at a large scale, so limiting it to just the LA metro area would be pointless. People would travel out and bring the virus with them (as we've seen with rural cases in Washington, or the food plant shutdowns in the Midwest).

Well... or you restrict travel so people can't do that.

I shall imagine that it's easier to say "if you're in [state], don't do [this]", rather than saying "if you fall inside this imaginary line, don't do [this]". Which is exactly why things like metro areas aren't be blocked off. No one knows where they start and end, apart from those delineated by obvious geography like rivers (and even those are typically state or county boundaries, which don't always correspond to metro areas).

The San Gabriel Mountains seem to be aching as a pretty hard geographic barrier right now towards northern spread just as the Diablo Range was for San Francisco Bay.  The case loads in California drop off the map once a large mountain range near the big cities is encountered.  It takes an effort to get from the big cities in California, there isn't that wall to wall civilization that is seen out East. 

[tradephoric]

The worst case model was estimating 2.2 million American deaths if we did nothing to mitigate the virus.  But it looks like the experts overestimated the fatality rate of this virus.  Even if every single American gets infected and assuming a 0.63% death rate (the highest death rate of the antibody studies listed below), there would be 2.07 million deaths (which is 130k fewer deaths than the worst case scenario model).  Here are estimated coronavirus death rates based on antibody testing performed throughout the world:



If you average all these antibody studies the death rate for coronavirus would be 0.3% or 3x more deadly than the flu.  Assuming a 0.3% death rate and 100% of Americans infected, there would be 990k deaths.  There have been recent antibody testing done in NY and Governor Cuomo is stated as saying the New York state fatality rate appears to be 0.5 percent (which is in the range of the other antibody tests done throughout the world). 

[hotdogPi]

To whoever made that graphic: Chelsea is not part of Boston.

[SEWIGuy]

Don't agree with your numbers.

That's why I always assume people don't know about flu vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/2019-2020.html

From the FAQ in the link:

"CDC conducts studies each year to determine how well the influenza (flu) vaccine protects against flu illness. While vaccine effectiveness (VE) can vary, recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine."

So yeah I slightly overstated it. But that's still effective.

Fine print: It happened once in the past 5 years, when vaccine efficiency was just below 50%. Those are some beautiful small details!

My point was a vaccine that would as well as the flu vaccine, combined with effective treatment would pretty much get us back to normal.  And everyone should get it regardless of how healthy you are and where you live because it helps against community spread.

That would be an "effective" vaccine. 

[SEWIGuy]

The worst case model was estimating 2.2 million American deaths if we did nothing to mitigate the virus.  But it looks like the experts overestimated the fatality rate of this virus.  Even if every single American gets infected and assuming a 0.63% death rate (the highest death rate of the antibody studies listed below), there would be 2.07 million deaths (which is 130k fewer deaths than the worst case scenario model).  Here are estimated coronavirus death rates based on antibody testing performed throughout the world:



If you average all these antibody studies the death rate for coronavirus would be 0.3% or 3x more deadly than the flu.  Assuming a 0.3% death rate and 100% of Americans infected, there would be 990k deaths.  There have been recent antibody testing done in NY and Governor Cuomo is stated as saying the New York state fatality rate appears to be 0.5 percent (which is in the range of the other antibody tests done throughout the world). 

I think a lot of the reasons why this isn't as deadly as they projected is because the medical community is getting better at treating the disease. 

[hotdogPi]

The number would be higher for coronavirus than flu, as flu mutates faster.

[kalvado]

Don't agree with your numbers.

That's why I always assume people don't know about flu vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/2019-2020.html

From the FAQ in the link:

"CDC conducts studies each year to determine how well the influenza (flu) vaccine protects against flu illness. While vaccine effectiveness (VE) can vary, recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine."

So yeah I slightly overstated it. But that's still effective.

Fine print: It happened once in the past 5 years, when vaccine efficiency was just below 50%. Those are some beautiful small details!

My point was a vaccine that would as well as the flu vaccine, combined with effective treatment would pretty much get us back to normal.  And everyone should get it regardless of how healthy you are and where you live because it helps against community spread.

That would be an "effective" vaccine.

Any somewhat working vaccine for covid would be a great thing to have. I was more saying that flu vaccine is nowere near what vaccine should look like.
Biggest difference between flu and covid in this regard is that for covid animal-to-human transmission is an event of decade, if not century - so no guesswork would be required; while for flu such transmission is a regular event, requiring a lot of guesswork - and as a result an already subpar vaccine goes into questionable return of investment category.

[tradephoric]

The IHME model is projecting 69,456 deaths by May 13th (2 weeks from now).  Today we stand at 59,266 deaths.  Over the course of 14 days the model is projecting an average of 727 deaths per day when we haven't seen under 1000 deaths since March 30th?  And it's not as if the daily cases have been dropping (they have just flattened) so I don't understand this optimism for a big drop in daily deaths.  By May 13th I'd expect to see around 80k deaths not 70k (and 10k deaths over the course of 2 weeks is a big difference)!

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

[jemacedo9]

It's a simple math equation, right?  number of deaths / number of infections (spread) = death rate. 

For number of deaths, for both flu and with COVID-19, we can influence the number of deaths by the types of treatments. However, at first, there weren't any known COVID-19 treatments.  That fortunately is changing.  So we were, and still, less able to influence the number of COVID-19 deaths via treatment.

In terms of the number of infections, for the flu, the vaccine helps control the number of infections.  Also, our body is better equipped to naturally fight off the flu.  We have neither for COVID-19, yet.  In addition, it is believed that COVID-19 spreads easier...above reasons are part of that...and also largely because of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread, which is a bigger factor with COVID-19 vs the flu.  In addition, we didn't understand the asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic part of this (and some people are still in denial about that). 

So because COVID-19 is still new, we're still trying to understand how both parts of the equation are impacted.  The only control we believe we have right now is to slow the rate of the number of infections by physical distancing.

And the final factor is timing...the number of infections and therefore deaths over time...in which Italy was the worst case scenario.

In order to control the number (and timing) of the deaths, it's simple algebra.
 
# of infections * death rate = number of deaths.

The question that everyone is arguing over is:  what is an acceptable # of deaths and in what timeframe vs the economic damage done, since right now, we can't really control either factor via science (treatments/vaccines). The only control we have is physical distancing, which creates an opposing factor...slowing movement of people slows the economy.

There is no perfect answer.

[D-Dey65]

All this time I've been wondering if FL 19 and FL 40 are closed in the Ocala National Forest, but somehow I doubt it.

Also, why have there been so many people trying to promote the idea that warm weather hinders the spread of the virus when so many people have been dying in Florida?

[Eth]

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado joined a western states pact to pledge to use science to fight covid-19. Take notes Georgia...

Well, Georgia says it's using science too. But science isn't all that matters.

FWIW, I'm not crazy about Georgia (and South Carolina) not just adopting liberal statewide policies, but also preempting local restrictions to address things like the outbreak in the Albany GA area. Other states, like Tennessee, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, have liberal statewide policies but are allowing local governments to act, or in South Dakota's case putting in a targeted state order to deal with a meatpacking plant outbreak in the southeastern corner of the state while largely leaving alone the distant northwestern corner where there are no cases so far.

As a Georgia resident, I'd say this largely mirrors my feelings. There very likely are some regions of the state that can start relaxing, but some places definitely cannot yet. Local authorities being essentially stripped of their power by our governor is the very last thing we need right now.

FWIW, in my part of the inner Atlanta suburbs, a few places have reopened, but most restaurants, etc., have opted not to change operations yet.