Sunday, March 8, 2020

Sh*t Mardi Gras















ZeroHedge thinks all U.S. hospital beds will be filled due to Kung Flu cases by May 8th.

Au contraire, mes amis.

ZeroHedge's Tyler Durden knows what he knows, and doesn't know what he doesn't know.

1) The number of ICU beds already full is closer to 90%, most days, esp. during flu season, i.e. every day since Thanksgiving.

2) There's already a severe shortage of N95 masks, and all protective apparel. With damned close to zero Kung Flu patients hospitalized anywhere. And that's only going to get worse.

3) Because of #1 & #2, there won't be a shortage of hospital beds.
Quite simply, unless you're almost abso-fucking-lutely dying right this minute, you will not be getting a hospital bed.
Now. Then. Ever.

4) Napkin math says you'll need 5M cases of Kung Flu to get 1M who need a hospital. We're currently a long way from 5M cases, even if this doubles every 4-6 days.
(Remember Ebola Math: there are 34 doubles from 1 to Everyone.
The first ten get you to 1000. the second ten get you to 1M. So to get to 5M, you need 23 or so doublings. At 4-6 days per double, that's 92-138 days. So if that's the doubling speed, we will be at 5M cases by June, anyways. Not May. But in a pandemic, doublings speed up and slow down, as the virus hits new pockets of people, and then runs through them.)
Regardless, at some point, we'll get to 1M Kung Flu victims who need a bed.

5) None of that matters, because less than 10% of them will ever get in.

6) Because long before then, we'll either decide to stop seeing them, or hospital care at all will cease to exist, from staff infections, lack of supplies, people who'll stop coming to work, etc.

7) At that point, there will functionally be zero hospital beds.
Either because no one with Kung Flu will be let in, or because there isn't a hospital. I can tell you right now, we aren't going to turn away heart attacks, strokes, and trauma patients so we can see people with Kung Flu, even if they're really effing sick. I've told you, "Don't get this virus." This is why.

If you have URI symptoms, you'll be triaged outside to a tent, and then transmogrified and transported to some CDC-approved empty warehouse, sports arena, convention center, etc., where you'll get the best care you can from totally untrained amateurs, retirees brave enough to risk it, and people too stupid to turn that work down. Think former barristas, people too dumb to pass the TSA civil service exam, and the guys too stupid to make it delivering pizzas or spinning signs. The number of licensed folks there, like doctors or nurses, will be countable on one's thumbs. There will be somewhere between vastly inadequate PPE, to no PPE. They will be short of everything but patients.

And as friend ASM826 at Borepatch's blog has noted, even hospital staff can wear full Level A encapsulating suits in the hospital, but if they aren't wearing them to their front yard decon station, and staying inside afterwards, they're going to get Kung Flu from the general population anyways, in short order.

8) That is an S3 event.
It is not a Shit Show.
It is not a Shit Circus.
It will be a Shit Mardi Gras.

So Tyler's analysis is too cheery by a couple orders of magnitude.

{If you were wondering, the higher levels are, in ascending order, A Shit Riot, A Shit Tsunami, and a Shit Apocalypse.
You do not want to see an S5 or S6 event, believe me.
Moses' ten plagues on Egypt were only an S5. The only S6 in recorded human history was Noah's Flood.}

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

The winds of shit are blowing indeed

Anonymous said...

No one in officialdom or the media is mentioning strengthening our immunity. Whatz up wi' dat!!?? Be well hydrated. Load up on Vitamin D for several days and then maintain with 5000 I.U.'s daily. 1000-2000 mg vitamin C and supplement with magnesium, zinc and iodine...etc.
--Ron W

nick flandrey said...

@Ron, to them, that sort of thing is 'woo woo' witchcraft. Also anathema to the medical industry as they don't make money without sick people. So, even in the face of pandemic, they can't overcome their inbuilt prejudices.

---meanwhile a couple things missing from my preps

Hand cream. All that washing is making my hands raw. Stock up. You might want a barrier creme too.

Deodorant. Snivel stuff, but makes everyone more comfortable when cooped up. And most people don't go thru it fast enough to have lots on hand. I THOUGHT I did, but the 5 units have gone missing.

Most people have a two compartment sink in the kitchen or even just one, you might want to be sure you have tubs or trays to set up a 3 compartment sink like restaurants use, complete with a bleach sanitizer third compartment. Get some bleach test strips while you're at it so you know that your sanitizer is up to strength. Info on line if this is new to you.

You will probably want to change your furnace/ac filters WAY more often than normal. Order the best you can NOW, and get enough for frequent changes. Gear up before the change too, so you don't get that captured crap on you or throughout your house.

Duct tape and plastic sheeting....

Buckets and lids are always useful.

If you don't have any sewing stuff for minor repairs, get at least a pack of needles and strong black thread so you can repair your webgear if needed.

Shoe goo glue.

Prepping is fractal in nature, limited only by time and resources.

nick

T-Rav said...

Forgive me for asking two questions that have already been asked; I'm 99% sure I've seen the answers but forgot them in the pace of events.

So, 1) Re: the simple masks you see people wear sometimes when they've got a cold or the flu. Are those of *any* use in keeping virus germs from getting to you, or are they strictly for stopping you from blowing your own germs all over creation? (I know they wouldn't be anywhere near as useful as an N95, but do they provide even minimal protection?)

And 2) Have they determined the contagion timeline on this thing? As in, let's say I'm unknowingly infected with coronavirus today. From when to when, starting today, would I be at risk of infecting others in turn?

From Norway said...

From Italy: https://apnews.com/837274f1bab9af1aab12f1b9481b2d62

The best is this part: “This epidemic is on a scale that is larger than anyone could have thought, imagined or prevented.” Dr. Massimo Galli, head of infectious disease at Milan’s Sacco Hospital.

Aesop, you should change your name to Mr. Anyone.

I could see it mid January, when the Chinese went crazy monkey and isolated 50 million. Everybody could tell the numbers the Chinese were giving did not match that reaction, so they either lied about the numbers or knew very well what crap had escaped their lab.

As you say TOP. MEN.

From Norway said...

I forgot to say, not everybody is a retard.

We learned today that one of the "medical regions" of Norway, in mid-January, made a big purchase of protection equipment, because somebody saw the shit party coming. Also bought big tents and material to mount "campaign hospitals" wherever needed or available. I repeat, mid-January.

The bad news is that the other three regions decided to go shopping this week, so they are empty. So they have to share.

nick flandrey said...

Ant, meet Grasshopper. NOW SHARE OR WE'LL KILL YOU.

Yep. People want my masks for nothing. I bought them and tied up money and storage space, and took ridicule for doing so. So no, they can't have them for nothing.

Oddly enough, with all the handwringing about health care providers not having enough protective gear, (and who is to blame for that? Hospital administration determines stocking levels, not me) no one in authority has just ASKED for it. Of course mine is all out of date so it'll be a while before they get to the point where they'll admit that they were spending money needlessly obsoleting perfectly good supplies and approve the use of out of date supplies.

Not much can go wrong with shoe covers, or aprons FFS, except the elastic getting old. So if the elastic is fine, Bob's your uncle. And an apron with ties? WTF could age out on that?

n

Anonymous said...

The analysis is by Liz Specht, a PhD in biology and the associate director of Science and Technology for the Good Food Institute.

As usual with these things. after the fact the official line will be that "nobody could have seen this coming", etc. Of course, those who did were being derided mercilessly and written off as kooks. Plus ça change.

norwood said...

Okay then! I see the seriousness of this and have one question....Is it time for Panic Sex?

nick flandrey said...

I left a mega pack of condoms off my last minute list. pregnancy complications and ordinary prenatal care is going to be ugly when this gets going.

n

Aesop said...

@T-Rav

1) No. They are worthless for prevention/protection except for anyone not you. Period.

2) The standard incubation of coronavirus is 2-14 days. It has been reported that this one may seem dormant for up to 24 or even 28 days. Persons may be asymptomatic, and still contagious, and shedding virus hither and yon for much of that period, before they show any symptoms whatsoever.
If someone self-quarantines, and they haven't got it in a month, they haven't got it. anyone at a lesser time point is still potentially infected.


Hope that helps.

Anonymous said...

I read a story somewhere today that indicated that the triage decision tree will be "1. how sick is this person, 2. long does this person normally have left to live", i.e. senior citizens will NOT be offered resources to survive, especially when resources are stretched, except maybe palliative care to make them comfortable, assuming there's enough resources for that. How many Hospice people are there?

Next question, "Who's going to bury all the dead?" Normal death rate in the USA is ~2.5M/yr. 4X that, if current death rates ~3.5% hold, will, I suspect, quickly overwhelm the mortician industry. Guess where embalming fluid comes from.

Nemo

From Norway said...

I doubt there will be embalming. Cremation is faster and less risky, specially if dying of an infectious disease.

Anonymous said...

Long portable crematoria, a la Wuhan

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

Aesop don't know if you caught it but Joan Wilder made the zero hedge cut. Don't know if thats good or bad, I go their for the comments mostly since its mostly click bate.

Said that because the video at his blog is funny.

Spin said...

If it hasn't been proven that exposure and survival conveys immunity then this is the "flood" and is an S6 event and mankind is almost completely doomed. Prove me wrong and show your work. If there is immunity then its an S3 as "Aesop the Common Genius" writes.

Live long and prosper.

Spin

Anonymous said...

@nick flandery: and Ants reply was 'my #4 buckshot (or whatever caliber is in use) says I ain't got to share shit'.

One of the reasons I told the wife, if asked, to just follow the stock line of 'its just the flu' and deny any need for let alone any sort of prepping. No one can have enough rounds for all the grasshoppers that will be around even if they are GySgt Hathcock reincarnated.

T-Rav said...

Thanks Aesop. I'm not really concerned about catching the virus myself; what I am concerned with is accidentally passing it on to my elderly grandparents, who have plenty of health problems already and are at-risk in every way possible. Time to look for a surgical mask, I guess.

Reltney McFee said...

T-Rav: Wash.
Your.
Hands.