Coronavirus and BCA Pool League World Championships

You can't really calculate fatality rates in the middle of an outbreak. It takes about two years. It could turn out to be similar to the flu, but it could be significantly worse. Also, your overall number of deaths comes from fatality rate AND the number of cases. So in the absence of a vaccine, taking measures to prevent exposure/spread is especially important.

Just to compare with the global figures, here are recent statistics from Lombardy, Italy which has a well-developed health care system. As of Sunday: 7,375 confirmed cases of the virus, 622 had recovered, 366 had died, and the majority still sick. Even if most of the sick recover, that's a higher fatality rate than the flu.

Its not a reason panic...but it is a reason to be cautious because there's a lot we don't know. Testing in the U.S. is still limited. I have a friend whose surgery was cancelled because of possible exposure and it took a fight to get tested.

I think there is a good chance that the BCA event will result in spreading the virus to new communities. But since its going ahead, hopefully people will take precautions to limit it....not just at the pool table but around the casino and especially at the bar. If you're close enough to smell someone's breath, then you're too close.

markusca said:

Just so you consider the reality... every time you touch the cloth you may as well be shaking hands with the 1000 people that played on that table in the last week. You might as well just shake hands.

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My cousin is a nurse who has already worked in Covid-19 quarantine areas and she was told the virus can only survive on dead surfaces for 3 hours. However i have also read 9 days so take your pick

metalcobra23 said:

You would be if you went to the mosconi center for a car show and there were 10’s of thousands of people there


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Because of the lack of testing, I am now if the opinion that large events should be avoided if possible for the time being, especially if the individual is vulnerable. When we have more of a grip on this, it will be business as usual. It looks like many of us will get it eventually. Very few will not survive.

markusca said:

Just so you consider the reality... every time you touch the cloth you may as well be shaking hands with the 1000 people that played on that table in the last week. You might as well just shake hands.

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Good point. I keep a little bottle of hand sanitizer attached to my case.

BC21 said:

Actually, when conparing confirmed cases, the flu and the coronavirus are equally as deadly. The numbers that doctor gives in the article (463 deaths and 9000 confirmed cases) is pretty much exactly the same results/outcomes of the flu in the US, which has a weekly mortality rate between 5 and 7%, in accordance with the latest data from the 2018-19 flu season. And just like the coronavirus, pneumonia is the number #1 driver associated with that mortality rate.

The doctor gave some good advice.... Wash your hands frequently, avoid contact with large groups of people, especially in areas where the virus is rampant. These are the same precautions most of us take every flu season, and we don't avoid concerts or sporting events. We probably would if a large number of confirmed flu cases were found local, in your particular city. Like the few times I kept my daughters home, rather than sending them to school where too many kids reportedly had the flu.

Of course, if I come back from vegas feeling the slightest bit sick, well, I might change my tune! :embarrassed:

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Brian - The big picture that is painted by the article is that this particular virus, due it being new (the public has zero immunity to it), will overwhelm the health care system of even wealthy, western societies if not mitigated. The seasonal flu impact spans over the course of a half year, and during the high point of its impact in any given area of the US, the health care system is maxed out. And, importantly - actually, critically - the health care workers get vaccinated against the seasonal flu at a high rate, and therefore are able to work when the flu is going around. Here, with this novel (new, no vaccine) virus, the health care workers are MORE likely to become infected - and then sick, and unable to care for patients. The whole point is that the curve of impact has to be flattened - or else, welcome to the northern Italy experience, or worse. A discussion about statistics and percentages is meaningless when it doesn’t consider the capacity of the health care system.

Here, check out the huge impact on the staff at the Seattle nursing home. This doesn’t happen with the seasonal flu, because we have a vaccine:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN20X01R

And here’s what happens when there is a self-interest/protect the economy attitude coming from ignorant, selfish leadership about an infectious disease that humans have not developed an immunity against:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ph...ds-influenza-epidemic-libery-loan-parade/amp/

Seth C. said:

Brian - The big picture that is painted by the article is that this particular virus, due it being new (the public has zero immunity to it), will overwhelm the health care system of even wealthy, western societies if not mitigated. The seasonal flu impact spans over the course of a half year, and during the high point of its impact in any given area of the US, the health care system is maxed out. And, importantly - actually, critically - the health care workers get vaccinated against the seasonal flu at a high rate, and therefore are able to work when the flu is going around. Here, with this novel (new, no vaccine) virus, the health care workers are MORE likely to become infected - and then sick, and unable to care for patients. The whole point is that the curve of impact has to be flattened - or else, welcome to the northern Italy experience, or worse. A discussion about statistics and percentages is meaningless when it doesn’t consider the capacity of the health care system.

Here, check out the huge impact on the staff at the Seattle nursing home. This doesn’t happen with the seasonal flu, because we have a vaccine:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN20X01R

And here’s what happens when there is a self-interest/protect the economy attitude coming from ignorant, selfish leadership about an infectious disease that humans have not developed an immunity against:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ph...ds-influenza-epidemic-libery-loan-parade/amp/

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Good point.

On a side note, even with a vaccine the regular flu causes about the same ratio of deaths as this new strain of coronavirus, so far, around 5% of confirmed cases. I wonder how scary the regular flu looked prior to the development of the vaccine? I'm sure that info is available somewhere online. It had to have been much scarier than what we're seeing with coronavirus. And I'm not belittling that virus, I just hope we can get it under control.

EVERY bio-lab on the planet is working on this. One co. in Texas has a vaccine ready for animal trials. While this is definitely a serious situation its not as bad as a lot of mainstream media is making it out to be. Sticking to standard protocols will help and staying away from crowds, especially indoors, to me is a no-brainer. There is NO way i would have gone to Vegas for a pool tournament. Why roll dice with your health?????

BC21 said:

Good point.

On a side note, even with a vaccine the regular flu causes about the same ratio of deaths as this new strain of coronavirus, so far, around 5% of confirmed cases. I wonder how scary the regular flu looked prior to the development of the vaccine? I'm sure that info is available somewhere online. It had to have been much scarier than what we're seeing with coronavirus. And I'm not belittling that virus, I just hope we can get it under control.

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Well, the Spanish flu, for example, was certainly scary. And for good reason. As for seasonal flu, that term describes a whole set of viruses and strains of viruses. The vaccines that are developed every year are designed to address the viruses and strains that are emerging and expected. In some years, of course, the vaccines are less effective than in other years because Mother Nature’s viruses are mutating and emerging faster than the vaccine developers can identify. But the point is that the “seasonal flu” is not a singe virus that emerges at a point in time, causing an unprepared health care system to falter if not fail.

Again, the key is not how this new virus stacks up against the seasonal flu in terms of incidence of infection, serious illness and mortality. The only things that matter right now (pre-development of a vaccine and pre-development of any Covid-19 specific treatment - such as Tamiflu for swine flu) are the rate at which the cases arise and the capacity of the health care system to deal with those cases. So yes, be part of social distancing, avoid the avoidable places where infection may be present, and more than anything, pressure family and friends who are health care workers to protect themselves at all cost (and help them out so that they can accomplish that).

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Look...the CFR (Case Fatality Rate) is dynamic at this stage because unlike the stats that are touted about influenza (the flu), we do not have a final number of confirmed infected and a final number of deaths from those confirmed infected in order to calculate a CFR. If you were to simply use the resolved case numbers (those deaths from confirmed cases and those recovered from confirmed cases) you would see a rate that is scary high (5-7%). If you use the number of total confirmed cases (resolved plus still active) then the number is around 3.5% or so. A vaccine is not guaranteed. We have not yet developed a vaccine for MERS, SARS, or a host of other viruses. That being said, a therapeutic is likely to be developed rather quickly. There are clinical trials in progress now for a number of those. Part of the issue with the disease is that patients can die very quickly or suddenly due to cytokine storms which is where the body's own immune system begins to attack not only infected cells but healthy cells as well and causes organs to shutdown. This virus attaches to ACE2 receptors which are found in the lungs, heart, liver, and other vital systems/organs within the body. Anyway...this virus is nasty and it has been causing crazy disruptions and will continue to do so...it is just getting started. We may see it subside over the Summer only to come back in the Fall for a 2nd wave which is what also happened with the Spanish Flu Pandemic. In fact, I think there may have been three waves with the Spanish Flu. What is happening in Italy is going to happen here as well...it will start in the large cities and areas where there are already cluster outbreaks occurring. Unfortunately, we are not aggressively testing to see where the virus is currently circulating and who has the virus. Without that info, how do you contain its spread? You can't. South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong got ahead of the curve and everyone else is lagging...including the U.S. We will see in the next 7-14 days. Several experts are saying we are about 10 days out from being like Italy.

Bob Jewett said:

Where do you get this number? The fatality rate for the flu that I have seen is more like 0.1%. That is, for every thousand people that get the flu, one will die.

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This is his earlier analysis:


Originally Posted by BC21 View Post
Exactly.

The latest total of confirmed coronavirus cases is around 121,000 worldwide. Around 4,300 people have died from it. That seems alarming, especially if you listen or watch too much fear-mongering news. The insinuation is that of those who get the virus about 96% will survive and 4% will die.

Compare this to the regular flu, where an estimated 30+ million people get it every year in the USA alone, and around 30,000+ die. That means nearly 99.9% survive, according to "estimates".

But how many US flu cases are actually "confirmed" flu cases? We can't compare estimated flu data to actual confirmed coronavirus data. In order to put the coronavirus in proper perspective, we should be comparing apples to apples -- confirmed cases to confirmed cases.

According to the CDC and the US World Health Organization (WHO), about 1,100,000 people were tested for influenza during the 2018-2019 flu season.
Of those tested only about 177,000 were reported as positive/confirmed flu cases. The mortality rate of these confirmed influenza related cases (which includes pneumonia) was 5 to 7%, indicating that about 95% survived and 5% did not. This is pretty much the same when compared to confirmed coronavirus cases.

The CDC says that most flu cases go undiagnosed and most people don't get checked out by a doctor. They just buy over the counter meds and suffer through it, and therefore they estimate that the mortality rate is much lower than the 5 to 7% shown in confirmed cases. And so people don't freak out over the flu, due to the "estimated" numbers being less alarming than the actual reported numbers. The same should apply to this new coronavirus. What are the estimated numbers for this thing?

I did not address that issue because (a) it is too early to look for an answer as to the mortality rate of Covid-19 (pre-vaccine), and (b) it is largely a “so what” issue right now. The real issue of concern is the rate of spread in relation to the capacity of the health care system to deal with what we know to be a significant degree of serious and fatal cases.

Patrick53212 said:

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Look...the CFR (Case Fatality Rate) is dynamic at this stage because unlike the stats that are touted about influenza (the flu), we do not have a final number of confirmed infected and a final number of deaths from those confirmed infected in order to calculate a CFR. If you were to simply use the resolved case numbers (those deaths from confirmed cases and those recovered from confirmed cases) you would see a rate that is scary high (5-7%). If you use the number of total confirmed cases (resolved plus still active) then the number is around 3.5% or so. A vaccine is not guaranteed. We have not yet developed a vaccine for MERS, SARS, or a host of other viruses. That being said, a therapeutic is likely to be developed rather quickly. There are clinical trials in progress now for a number of those. Part of the issue with the disease is that patients can die very quickly or suddenly due to cytokine storms which is where the body's own immune system begins to attack not only infected cells but healthy cells as well and causes organs to shutdown. This virus attaches to ACE2 receptors which are found in the lungs, heart, liver, and other vital systems/organs within the body. Anyway...this virus is nasty and it has been causing crazy disruptions and will continue to do so...it is just getting started. We may see it subside over the Summer only to come back in the Fall for a 2nd wave which is what also happened with the Spanish Flu Pandemic. In fact, I think there may have been three waves with the Spanish Flu. What is happening in Italy is going to happen here as well...it will start in the large cities and areas where there are already cluster outbreaks occurring. Unfortunately, we are not aggressively testing to see where the virus is currently circulating and who has the virus. Without that info, how do you contain its spread? You can't. South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong got ahead of the curve and everyone else is lagging...including the U.S. We will see in the next 7-14 days. Several experts are saying we are about 10 days out from being like Italy.

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THIS.

And we have a wholly self-absorbed con man at the helm who spent this past weekend playing golf with professional baseball players and political fundraising. Oh, and putting out messages that the virus really isn’t that bad and he’s doing a fabulous job.

Seth C. said:

THIS.

And we have a wholly self-absorbed con man at the helm who spent this past weekend playing golf with professional baseball players and political fundraising. Oh, and putting out messages that the virus really isn’t that bad and he’s doing a fabulous job.

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Take it to NPR. BTW, Trump's response has been fine so far. Can you imagine either Gropin Joe or Heart-attack Sanders in charge right now? Please. We're not going to be like Italy.

Health concern

I've been hearing here in the midwest local pool leagues are concerned...

It has been announced entering the US from aboard will be subject to a 14 day quarantine.

Playing pool is a close quarter sport, you're constantly in contact with everyone with the cloth, rack, chalk, rails, etc...

If in doubt, think about it, everyone has a choice.

Joe

Toilet Paper

measureman said:

I hope they have a lot of toilet paper.
There are people in Colorado buying all they can.
I don't get it.

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So here is the deal. Nearly everything is made in China or made with parts, chemicals, ingredients, etc that are from China. China has been virtually shutdown for two months now and based on measurable data that is not reliant on info from CCP controlled outlets, they are not back to work in any significant capacity. So if you need anything that may be dependent upon chemicals or ingredients from China...now is the time to buy them. IF it gets bad here and there are quarantines and travel restrictions (most likely in high density population areas such as major metropolitan areas...especially on the West and East coasts) then you may not be able to go out and buy stuff as often. There is also the possibility that maybe people are buying in bulk to ship back to families overseas thinking that they will then have these items that they cannot buy or have access to otherwise due to shortages/shutdowns/quarantines in their families' countries. At any rate...we live in a very complex society. Supply chain systems are very complex and are global in nature. There are major disruptions already in play that have only started to show up over here but that will continue to intensify. Just go to your local Verizon Wireless store or other similar store and ask if they have iPhones, Samsung Phones, etc to sell. I am anticipating that next month, we will see a lot of items in short supply if not altogether unavailable in stores. If India gets hit like China...forget it...we will be so screwed. Already the healthcare workers and institutions are short on protective gear...because 80% or more is made in China and global demand is through the roof right now. Plus, China has nationalized manufacturing plants over there and will not allow for export of those items outside of China because they need them. The same will be happening to medications. How many people do you know that can afford to be quarantined for two weeks...30 days....60 days? That is what has happened in China, South Korea and now is beginning in Italy. You think it can't happen here? I think it is smart to have a 3 month supply (at a minimum) of all personal care products, drugs, food, water, etc. I have no idea what our population is going to do about bills...most Americans don't have enough saving to go more than a week without a paycheck. A lot of companies are in that boat too...what happens if they have to shutdown for a month or longer?

Italy

garczar said:

Take it to NPR. BTW, Trump's response has been fine so far. Can you imagine either Gropin Joe or Heart-attack Sanders in charge right now? Please. We're not going to be like Italy.

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We absolutely will be like Italy. I agree that Trump is better than anyone else...but unfortunately, I think he was blindsided by this. The reports of an unknown viral pneumonia infection in China have been in the press since at least mid-December 2019. It's not like we haven't had four months to prepare. When he imposed the travel ban...it was already too little too late. This deal with the testing has been an absolute disaster and shows total incompetence by the organizations and individuals in charge. 10 days...we are Northern Italy in several major metro areas in 10 days. Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City for certain.

garczar said:

Take it to NPR. BTW, Trump's response has been fine so far. Can you imagine either Gropin Joe or Heart-attack Sanders in charge right now? Please. We're not going to be like Italy.

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Actually, we are headed directly toward being like Italy, precisely because we were not prepared and didn’t react quickly and smartly. Perhaps you did not read about it, but in 2018 Trump eliminated the office of global health security within the NSC:

https://www.kff.org/news-summary/de...aves-experts-concerned-over-u-s-preparedness/

Perhaps you are also unaware that the Administration declined to use the World Health Organization’s test, which was distributed to dozens of countries in February and allowed countries like South Korea to jump all over testing its citizens, and that misinformation, from the Administration’s task force and from Trump himself, about the status of test availability and deployment has been frequent, and continues to this day.

Use of derogatory nicknames is not helpful. We are discussing what happened here in the US, what to expect by way of governmental assistance, and how to manage our lives. It is quite apparent that our federal government’s unpreparedness, and Trump’s attempt to buoy the stock market by downplaying the risks, hurt us.

Seth C. said:

....... The real issue of concern is the rate of spread in relation to the capacity of the health care system to deal with what we know to be a significant degree of serious and fatal cases.

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This is understandably something to be concerned about. If people take whatever precautions they can then we might be able to avoid getting slammed by the coronavirus "tsunami".

I am healthy and Vegas bound. And I fully expect to return back home healthy and virus free. I hope.:embarrassed2:

I just worked on a press briefing about a Federal Government center in California that has asked its employees to work at home, telework, because somebody in the center tested positive.

Barry Hearn is thinking about having the World Snooker event (beginning late April) held behind closed doors, yet the World Masters is on schedule to begin later this month. Both eventes are, I think, in England.

No fans at March Madness games.