Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #78

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Does my employer have to say if a coworker has the virus?

Employers are generally not required to tell workers when someone in the workplace has tested positive for the coronavirus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that companies monitor employees for symptoms and alert those who may have been in contact with an infected person. Some states may order businesses to follow such guidance.

Employers have the right to take employees' temperature and ask about symptoms or if they have been exposed to or diagnosed with the virus. If an employee doesn't respond to those questions, they can be barred from the workplace.


There are also pending lawsuits against employers filed by workers who were exposed to or diagnosed with the coronavirus. In general, there's a high legal bar for finding an employer at fault for endangering employees and most claims are resolved via worker's compensation settlements. There has also been some debate over whether Congress should grant businesses liability protections during the pandemic.

Does my employer have to say if a coworker has the virus?

The employer may not have to disclose the information. But if your county is doing "Contact Tracing". And you are identified as a "close contact" of a positive Covid case, you would be notified by the county department of health, and given a two week order of quarantine. With information about where to get a free Covid test.

The Department of Health will not disclose who listed you as a contact.

Contact Tracing

Interesting, schools are doing their own contact tracing within the school system. Working with the Department of Health. The school will follow up with staff/students of a positive case. And from my point of view, they are doing a fantastic job here.
 
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Michiganders urged to stay indoors as officials race to stop the spread of a dangerous mosquito-borne disease - CNN

Not only are Michigan health officials dealing with the coronavirus, but they're also trying to contain the spread of a rare mosquito-borne disease.

Authorities are urging people to stay indoors after dark and protect themselves from mosquito bites after a resident in Barry County was suspected of having Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), a potentially deadly illness caused by the EEE virus.“
 
You didn't make any math errors, but I'll point out that it's really best to compare deaths to the total case number - unless you're certain that most of the population has already had CoVid.

Please also be aware that in the US, Senior Living Apartments (for age 55 and older, sometimes age 50 and older) are a thing and they are included in the "care home stats." These are places where perfectly healthy, often working adults live.

Since you seem to be wanting to subtract the numbers of deaths attributable to "would have died in a few years anyway" group, that number is less than our total care home population.

People move into these facilities (sometimes buying into them) well in advance of their ultimate demise. 20-30 years ahead. They aren't nursing facilities, but are usually owned by the same companies. They do provide "care" (but see below)

There is one very near me. It's expensive, it's cute, it's classified under CA policy as a "care facility" but really only offers 24 hour concierge-like services (and a better chance. at a bed in a related nursing facility). There are also other senior living facilities that do not have any "care" and are not so classified - they too have been hit hard by CoVid. This is very popular with couples, as a big fear that people have is that "something will happen" to their spouse and there will be no one immediately nearby to help. Each apartment has a buzzer. There are always at least 2 employees on duty, one of whom has to be at least an LVN.

Anyway, we have about 200,000 deaths in the US with about 7 million known positive cases. Both numbers are under-reported, according to all the science. But, the ratio is roughly the same - so to be more meaningful (since CoVid isn't going away and frankly, the US isn't really locked down in any real sense - except for New York and New Jersey and Hawaii), we can expect the remaining 320,000,000 Americans to get CoVid at some point - as I posted yesterday. Actually, if we exclude the very old and the very young, one can argue that we're worried about approximately 220,000,000 Americans getting Covid, of whom...some will die (and we don't know exactly how many - for 50 somethings, it would be 1%).

To be really precise about our math, we'd use a total case number from about 3 weeks ago (since that's the pool from which 95-99% of the deaths are coming). So take your pick: 200,000 dead out of 6 million or out of 7 million (not a major difference).

My math says that of all Americans getting CoVid, almost 3% will die. If I were trying to back out the old people who would have died in the next 5 years anyway (as you're doing), I'd probably get nearly the same statistics as the scientists at the major medical research institutes (1% of 50 somethings, .03 percent of 35-49 year olds, .005 or less of 20 somethings, 3% for 65-75, etc. 20-25% of over 85, etc.

I specifically wanted to see the stats without the LTC home deaths to see how Sweden compared. Lockdowns don't affect those deaths so that is why I wanted to see the outcome.
 
Michiganders urged to stay indoors as officials race to stop the spread of a dangerous mosquito-borne disease - CNN

Not only are Michigan health officials dealing with the coronavirus, but they're also trying to contain the spread of a rare mosquito-borne disease.

Authorities are urging people to stay indoors after dark and protect themselves from mosquito bites after a resident in Barry County was suspected of having Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), a potentially deadly illness caused by the EEE virus.“

:eek:
 
Sweden is being discussed on The radio ATM so I want to post some details to discuss..

New country report: The COVID-19 Long-Term Care situation in Sweden

It’s not true that 58% of Covid-19 deaths in Scotland were in care homes

Countries where Coronavirus has spread - Worldometer

Total deaths
UK 41684
Sweden 5860

Less LTC from above links, UK 30% (47% Scotland) 12,200, Sweden 50% 2,930

Non LTC Deaths
UK 29,484
Sweden 2,930

Population 67million and 10 million
UK 440 per million
Sweden 293 per million

So if LTC deaths are removed, Sweden's death with no lockdowns and minimal restrictions can be seen in a more favourable light IMO.

If we do the same for US, remove 43% representing LTC deaths approx 86K, that would be 115k deaths for 331 million about 347 per million.

If I have made any calculation errors, please excuse.
I could throw another country into the mix: my own.

Long term care deaths in Canada: 81% or 5,324 as of May 25th (when most outbreaks were suppressed) https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavirus-canada-long-term-care-deaths-study-1.5626751#:~:text=The proportion of long-term,66 per cent in Spain.

As of yesterday): 9,200 total deaths - 5324 LTC deaths = 3876 deaths outside LTC.
Population 38 million. so 102 deaths per million, with prolonged and controlled restrictions.

Another statistic: percent of dead who are dead: 100%

I think for a more meaningful anaysis, statistically, you would need to control for more variables than simply whether or not the country had legally-imposed restrictions.

For example, percent obese adults in the population: Sweden 21%, UK 28%, US 36%
Obesity
 
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The employer may not have to disclose the information. But if your county is doing "Contact Tracing". And you are identified as a "close contact" of a positive Covid case, you would be notified by the county department of health, and given a two week order of quarantine. With information about where to get a free Covid test.

The Department of Health will not disclose who listed you as a contact.

Contact Tracing

Interesting, schools are doing their own contact tracing within the school system. Working with the Department of Health. The school will follow up with staff/students of a positive case. And from my point of view, they are doing a fantastic job here.

That's pretty much how it works at our universities in Ohio. Due to HIPPA laws, we aren't allowed to identify an employee or student who is COVID positive, or discuss any other health matter. Nor can we ask employees to disclose if they are COVID positive. But we do ask employees and students to self-disclose to us or the county Health Department. For students, sometimes it is the county Health Department where their parents live. When we learn of a case, we contact our local county Health Department and they do the contact tracing. When the local county health department learns of a case at the university, they contact us and let us know and sometimes they ask us questions to help them with contact tracing, such as list of other students in a class, other employees in the same office, etc. And we provide it.
 
Here are our stats:

New Zealand Coronavirus: 1,809 Cases and 25 Deaths - Worldometer

We went hard into lockdown level 4 alert, March 26th.

25 deaths total.

The two latest deaths were brothers, both men, both in their 50s, due to a small outbreak cluster which was contained by going back to 3.5 level alert in the city affected, for a few weeks. As far as I am concerned it worked.

Covid 19 coronavirus: One new case at border; NZ's 25th death announced

We are now back down to single digit (and occasionally zero) new community cases daily. Still some on the border of course as we are allowing returning citizens back in to managed isolation.

I think our science-focused approach, aggressive restrictions and consistent policy/messaging have been successful in saving lives and keeping our country one of the safest during this pandemic.

New Zealand ranked second-safest country in world for COVID-19 - report

New Zealand ranked particularly well in the 'quarantine efficiency' category, higher than any other nation. We also did better than first-ranked Germany in 'monitoring and detection', 'country vulnerability' and 'emergency preparedness'.
 
Another 860,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week

Weekly claims have improved since mid-August, when they briefly inched higher.

Continued jobless claims, counting workers who have filed for benefits for at least two weeks in a row, stood at 12.6 million, down significantly from last week.

Worse still, these numbers don't include claims filed under the government's various other jobless aid programs, such as the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides benefits for those who aren't usually eligible, such as the self-employed.

I think that unemployment is spiking in many places. And much of it seems to be among younger people. IMO

Our unemployment figures came out yesterday. We had a slight drop in unemployment rates for most of the country (still way too high though). Individually and understandably, Victoria's rate rose.
The UK's unemployment rate is said to be the worst in two years.
Canada is spiking as well. Said to be worse than the during the worst of the financial crisis.

Australia's unemployment rate falls to 6.8 per cent despite 42,000 Victorians losing work
Young people hit as unemployment rate rises
Jobless claims soar to nearly 1 million in Canada - BNN Bloomberg
 
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Here are our stats:

New Zealand Coronavirus: 1,809 Cases and 25 Deaths - Worldometer

We went hard into lockdown level 4 alert, March 26th.

25 deaths total.

The two latest deaths were brothers, both men, both in their 50s, due to a small outbreak cluster which was contained by going back to 3.5 level alert in the city affected, for a few weeks. As far as I am concerned it worked.

Covid 19 coronavirus: One new case at border; NZ's 25th death announced

We are now back down to single digit (and occasionally zero) new community cases daily. Still some on the border of course as we are allowing returning citizens back in to managed isolation.

I think our science-focused approach, aggressive restrictions and consistent policy/messaging have been successful in saving lives and keeping our country one of the safest during this pandemic.

New Zealand ranked second-safest country in world for COVID-19 - report

NZ is doing a fabulous job against this virus. Really, really good.
Strong leadership and unwavering public compliance are the most helpful things in this fight to save lives.

As well, this combination enables so much safe, unfettered freedom within the country's borders.

IMO
 
Here are our stats:

New Zealand Coronavirus: 1,809 Cases and 25 Deaths - Worldometer

We went hard into lockdown level 4 alert, March 26th.

25 deaths total.

The two latest deaths were brothers, both men, both in their 50s, due to a small outbreak cluster which was contained by going back to 3.5 level alert in the city affected, for a few weeks. As far as I am concerned it worked.

Covid 19 coronavirus: One new case at border; NZ's 25th death announced

We are now back down to single digit (and occasionally zero) new community cases daily. Still some on the border of course as we are allowing returning citizens back in to managed isolation.

I think our science-focused approach, aggressive restrictions and consistent policy/messaging have been successful in saving lives and keeping our country one of the safest during this pandemic.

New Zealand ranked second-safest country in world for COVID-19 - report
Did the 3 who escaped from quarantine in Auckland get recaptured?
 
my neck of the woods - my local health unit posted this on FB (targeting students):

This is not a joke. This is not a drill. #COVID19 is spreading widely and you need to pay attention.
Cancel your parties and ALL get-togethers. That means movie nights, games nights, study groups - being around anyone who is not your roommate or significant other.


Middlesex-London Health Unit

119648204_1423009717888730_5733283652434007571_o.jpg
 
Are you no longer in a state of emergency in the western world?

What powers do authorities have under a coronavirus state of emergency?
Actually, I don't really know if the US is in a state of emergency or not because so many people, cities, counties, states are doing different things. Some are taking COVID very seriously; some are not. Fortunately, I live in a community where people seem to be taking things relatively serious - masks require by the state.
 
Here are our stats:

New Zealand Coronavirus: 1,809 Cases and 25 Deaths - Worldometer

We went hard into lockdown level 4 alert, March 26th.

25 deaths total.

The two latest deaths were brothers, both men, both in their 50s, due to a small outbreak cluster which was contained by going back to 3.5 level alert in the city affected, for a few weeks. As far as I am concerned it worked.

Covid 19 coronavirus: One new case at border; NZ's 25th death announced

We are now back down to single digit (and occasionally zero) new community cases daily. Still some on the border of course as we are allowing returning citizens back in to managed isolation.

I think our science-focused approach, aggressive restrictions and consistent policy/messaging have been successful in saving lives and keeping our country one of the safest during this pandemic.

New Zealand ranked second-safest country in world for COVID-19 - report


That's just so amazing and such a testimony to the people who worked hard, self sacrificed and became united in their goal to eliminate CoVid. Congratulation to New Zealand. I expect that your PM will win some awards over this.

Coronavirus: 5 things New Zealand got right | DW | 08.06.2020
 
Did the 3 who escaped from quarantine in Auckland get recaptured?
I find this far more worrying than 3 people in New Zealand.
UK records 3,395 new Covid-19 cases as outbreak grows again | Daily Mail Online
"
Today's Department of Health data shows that the number of people being diagnosed with coronavirus each day has now been above 3,000 for six of the past seven days, with an average 3,354 per day.

This is a surge from an average 2,527 a week ago and just 1,435 the week before that, showing case numbers are rising rapidly."
 
That's just so amazing and such a testimony to the people who worked hard, self sacrificed and became united in their goal to eliminate CoVid. Congratulation to New Zealand. I expect that your PM will win some awards over this.

Coronavirus: 5 things New Zealand got right | DW | 08.06.2020

From the link:
"The cornerstone of a pandemic response for every country must be to find, test, isolate, and care for every case, and to trace and quarantine every contact," says Pyzik.

"That is every country's best defense against COVID-19 and it is how New Zealand succeeded in overcoming COVID-19."


Other than the long term care fiascoes, early on, it was the complete lack of testing, tracing and isolating that sent things off the rails in the U.S. , in my opinion. The article also talks about communication, frequent updates and setting expectations. Much is made of the "divided" nature of the U.S., but inconsistent messaging led to a lack of credibility. In my neck of the woods the Governor was notorious for imposing restrictions and then constantly extending them - to the point where trust was damaged.
 
Actually, I don't really know if the US is in a state of emergency or not because so many people, cities, counties, states are doing different things. Some are taking COVID very seriously; some are not. Fortunately, I live in a community where people seem to be taking things relatively serious - masks require by the state.

These two links may interest you. One is a link to the declaration of the state of emergency in NZ on March 25, and the other is the declaration of the state of emergency in the US on March 13.

New Zealand: Government declares state of emergency March 25 /update 5

Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak | The White House
 
From the link:
"The cornerstone of a pandemic response for every country must be to find, test, isolate, and care for every case, and to trace and quarantine every contact," says Pyzik.

"That is every country's best defense against COVID-19 and it is how New Zealand succeeded in overcoming COVID-19."


Other than the long term care fiascoes, early on, it was the complete lack of testing, tracing and isolating that sent things off the rails in the U.S. , in my opinion. The article also talks about communication, frequent updates and setting expectations. Much is made of the "divided" nature of the U.S., but inconsistent messaging led to a lack of credibility. In my neck of the woods the Governor was notorious for imposing restrictions and then constantly extending them - to the point where trust was damaged.

And that is what strong leadership is about. Uniting a country, encouraging them to not waiver, imparting useful information - information that may change as more is learned, but ensuring that the change is understood.

I don't really understand the 'lack of credibility'. 200,000 deaths is quite sadly credible to me. That should spark big concern among common-sense people. No matter who is saying what.

IMO
 
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