CoVid-19 and The 2020 Burning Man Event

[The Rod]

Ok, so I have the best idea. Hear me out ya'll:

Zorbs.

[some seeing eye]

We should ban people traveling from countries with the disease...

Seriously pray boy in chief Mike is not going to let agencies cancel revenue, because we need a "balanced budget.". So the decision is with insurers. Fortunately, whatever, the BORG has the cash to ride out a year.

[Elderberry]

If you ain't old and don't have some sort of preexisting condition you don't have much to worry about. It's only twice as bad as the flu. So instead of 1% dying it will be 2%. Big deal. Just don't shake hands or hug and you should be ok. Oh, and don't forget to keep washing your hands.

[BBadger]

We'll just pretend that playa dust will neutralize the virus.

[ygmir]

healing chakra crystal suppositories.

**drops mic**

[XPTom]

Can any med folks say exactly how many folks have caught the flu in Black Rock City in recent years? I'm guessing August in the desert is the off season.

[Token]

This epidemic will peak sometimes in May, maybe spill over to June if our esteemed VP prays hard enough. Thems the maths.

By the time TTITD rolls around it will be fine.

Now, will the BLM have enough staff left to issue a permit ...

... eh, half the tickets have been sold already so no biggie.

[The Rod]

Well, I just ordered 25 zorbs for camp THREAT just to be safe.

[Token]

Tyvek Suits will be the new Utilikilts of 2020.

[The Rod]

yeah to hell with tu-tu's. Now it's Tyvek-tuesday! With tye-die your own hazmat suit workshops.

"how to effectively eye-gaze through your full-face respirator"
"n95 tantric breathwork for beginners"
"is it lube or hand sanitizer? who cares?!"
"stop by the Bureau of Erotic Discourse for your free full body condom!"

[unjonharley]

I'm 82, and going for a low income tic .. Wash your hands and don't be touching yourself .. like last time

[The Rod]

We should ban people traveling from countries with the disease...

So.... ban everyone? Sounds great. It’ll be your own little personal Burning Man.
We can wave to each other from inside our personal protective zorbs.

[some seeing eye]

We should ban people traveling from countries with the disease...

So.... ban everyone? Sounds great. It’ll be your own little personal Burning Man.

My comment was a double entendre. What it meant is we could go back to the old days where we could infect 2-6 vehicle cotravelers, rather than many tens to a few hundred in an airplane or bus.

Seriously, take a look at predict.cdc.gov, once Praying Mike fixes their website. It's guaranteed the teams have shifted from common flu forecasts to COVID-19. Conventional flu follows an about 35 week cycle. It's difficult in the early time to model the numbers.

[unjonharley]

A stalag style delousing center at the gate ??

[The Rod]

A stalag style delousing center at the gate ??

I don’t see how that would be effective at combatting viral infections but still a great idea nonetheless.

[Canoe]

... It's only twice as bad as the flu. So instead of 1% dying it will be 2%. ...

No. Twenty times as fatal as the flu.
And a lot more contagious.

If you ain't old and don't have some sort of preexisting condition you don't have much to worry about...

Still kills in the 20 to 50 year range. Just kills a lot more as you go higher. And the bulk of those numbers are from a population with a heavy bias to the elderly in their demographics.

... Just don't shake hands or hug and you should be ok. Oh, and don't forget to keep washing your hands.

That's true.

But expand that to keeping a one metre distance - the distance expelled droplets take to fall (not in wind...).
And the WHO says to practice "social distancing", which includes avoiding large gatherings.

Soap dissolves the SARS-CoV-2 "lipid bilayer envelope". Virus falls apart. Non-viable. Can't infect.

Disinfectants, liquids wipes, gels and creams containing alcohol (and soap) have a similar effect but are not really quite as good as normal soap.
Soap is the best but alcohol wipes are good when soap is not practical or handy.

twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189

SARS-CoV-2 lipid bilayer envelope.png

And for SARS (virus SARS-CoV-1), another coronavirus, soap made the virus non-viable, while alcohol based was just 87% effective and encapsulated it instead of making it non-viable.

[Canoe]

This epidemic will peak sometimes in May, maybe spill over to June if our esteemed VP prays hard enough. Thems the maths. ...

My numbers suggest this round settling down roughly sometime June, but too few numbers to have conficence yet.

And numbers in Italy are not behaving as expected. Deaths are climbing far too fast and in sync with Detections. Deaths should be lagging Detections significantly, as in, coming in two to eight weeks behind Detections. A spike at the beginning if it was seeded well before meaningful Detections, but either the virus is doing something different there or there is a huge previously seeded cluster(s) whose long lead-in time is up and the deaths are coming in at the same time late detections are occuring.

[Canoe]

Can any med folks say exactly how many folks have caught the flu in Black Rock City in recent years? I'm guessing August in the desert is the off season.

Covid-19 isn't the flu.

• Covid-19 has largely the same Transmission paths (Direction Transmission, Droplet Transmission, Indirection Transmission, with Fecal Transmission suspected),
  but so far, as best known, no airborne/aerosol (float on the air) Transmission like some flu.
• That is not the same as Droplet Transmission, which both have. Droplet range one metre (3.3 feet), without wind.
• Note that Covid-19 does have intestinal virus shedding (and greater numbers than respiratory shedding), and violent diarrhea can produce fine droplets that can disperse up to 200 metres (656 feet).
• What is hoped, is that hot climates or hot-dry climates have a negative affect on the virus's viability on surfaces (Indirection Transmission), which has been shown to be up to six days, with SARS (SAR-CoV-1, another coronavirus) being viable up to nine days on stainless steel.
  - Note that hantavirus has no problem being viable in the hot & dry four-corners area.
• It is entirely unknown what affect the various playa soil components may have.

[Canoe]

This epidemic will peak sometimes in May, maybe spill over to June if our esteemed VP prays hard enough. Thems the maths. ...

My numbers suggest this round settling down roughly sometime June, but too few numbers to have confidence yet.

And then there's other affects... so who knows where the peak will be.
There's ~330 million people in the U.S., ~34 million got flu, 20,000 have died.
With a twenty times greater fatality rate, and a ~20% hospitalization rate, will people be more diligent at preventative measures?

social distancing.jpg

[Elderberry]

Last I read it was predicted to peak in July. Just in time for Burning Man.

[Token]

Simple back-of-the-napkin maths indicate a May peak ...

... but, with the vast landmass of the US of A, likely regional outbreaks that can be more/less intense based on geography, cultural variance ...

... can spill into June/July.

Either way, you should have about a 100# of rice, 200# of beans and a secondary source for protein and oils.

[zorro sings]

I am fairly convinced the event will not happen this year. The political pressure will be too great as we see more "large gatherings" cancelled either voluntarily or by government edict. Coachella should be an interesting test case here shortly.

[Sham]

We are +/- 6 months out. There is plenty of time for things to settle down and go forward. Coachella is at the 30 day mark and just made a decision to call it off. I would say we have until July to keep and eye on things and not second guess now.
*********************************************************
A source familiar with the arrangements tells me that the Coachella festival will be postponed due to Coronavirus concerns and moved to the weekends of October 9 and 16.

[Canoe]

Simple back-of-the-napkin maths indicate a May peak ...
... but, with the vast landmass of the US of A, likely regional outbreaks that can be more/less intense based on geography, cultural variance ...
... can spill into June/July. ...

napkin math is as good as any right now
too many variables - no way to predict people's preventative measures nor social distancing compliance
and any area/region can get seeded at any time: one infected individual and a four, six or eight week lead in time

• Mainland China was reporting 547 Confirmed on January 22.
• Mainland China peaked on February 17 with 58,046 Active lab-confirmed cases plus another 6,242 Suspected (Mild or Moderate, not lab confirmed), for 64,288 cases.
• They were under 50K total Active/Infected/Contagious reported by February 26, but
• global cases external to Mainland China started detecting significant numbers by then, with 3,332 External Confirmed.
• Now on March 9 EOD UTC, less than two weeks later:
  • Mainland China reports net to 17,792 Active/Infected/Contagious (~64% lower)(down 72% from peak)(on track to be very low 16 days out from now) and
  • External cases are on the upswing at 32,848 Confirmed (986% higher), with 28,195 Active and 4,653 Resolved (876 Deaths, 3,777 Recovered),
  • pushing Global Active back up to 45,987 cases.

For many Mild, the course of the disease will run around one week, and most within two weeks.
For the rest (Mild, Moderate, Severe, Critical), the course of the disease can run as long as eight weeks.
A number of cases from each of Mild, Moderate and Severe, will suddenly crash to Critical and succumb.

We are +/- 6 months out. There is plenty of time for things to settle down and go forward. Coachella is at the 30 day mark and just made a decision to call it off. I would say we have until July to keep and eye on things and not second guess now. ...

There's plenty of time for things to settle down,
and to resurge as people relax preventative & social distancing ("we're good now, BM is on!"),
or it gets reseeded anywhere at anytime,
and - perhaps time for a vaccine to pass accelerated trials.

Even a no-hug Burning Man could be problamatic. Participants from the U.S. and all over the world, with Droplet Transmission and playa winds, someone infected (even asymptomatic) coughs upwind of you, 10 feet? 20 feet? 50 feet?
Upwind of your camp?
Your bar?
Your kitchen?

Too many unknowns at this time.
.
.

Covid-19 Overview 2020-03-09 n.png

[lucky420]

Simple back-of-the-napkin maths indicate a May peak ...

... but, with the vast landmass of the US of A, likely regional outbreaks that can be more/less intense based on geography, cultural variance ...

... can spill into June/July.

Either way, you should have about a 100# of rice, 200# of beans and a secondary source for protein and oils.

My neighbor might start looking tasty...

[ygmir]

Simple back-of-the-napkin maths indicate a May peak ...

... but, with the vast landmass of the US of A, likely regional outbreaks that can be more/less intense based on geography, cultural variance ...

... can spill into June/July.

Either way, you should have about a 100# of rice, 200# of beans and a secondary source for protein and oils.

My neighbor might start looking tasty...

,,,

[unjonharley]

I live in earthquake country .. Two major rivers put this city on an island .. Already know, If something go's amiss the population will clear the store shelves .. Sooo, I'm prepper .. But without the four wheel drive and guns .. Non of that food shit that last a million years, .. Just keep twice the food supplies for a month.. Sides, there are two bishops on my block.. might get a gun, just in case..

[Canoe]

Getting nasty in Italy, from which a number of people have travelled with the virus to other countries, including the U.S..

They're reporting 10,149 Confirmed, 631 Deaths and 1,004 Recovered.
The problem is, that's significantly too many Deaths for Confirmed.

• Using the Wuhan guideline of 20% Severe, of which 18% will succumb, that is a CFR of 3.6%.
• If there were a final accumulated 631 Deaths, at a CFR of 3.6%, that would indicate an infected population of 17,528.
• But the 'western world', with the benefit of what has been learnt so far, is expecting a CFR a little over 2%.
• Using 2.05%, a final accumulation of 631 Deaths would indicate an infected population of 30,780.
• In Wuhan, deaths started in the first week, peaked in the third, and later treatments extended the course out to eight weeks, giving many previously expected deaths a much greater chance of recovery.
  - For a given infected population, it would take eight weeks before its expected fatalities would tally in.
  - Italy's current reported 631 Deaths, is already at 172% of the final expected fatalities at 3.6% for their current detected/confirmed reported infected population.
• If we assume that the current 631 Deaths reported represents 60% of the total deaths that the current infected population will accumulate, then with the 2.05%, the infected population size is 51,301. Which would mean an undetected infected population of 41,142 who are contagious.

With such a significant population of infected (be it 17K, 31K or 51K) with so much of it undetected, it's understandable why so many Italians are posting that they're upset and frustrated that authorities were only testing those with symptoms. Thereby they allowed those that were infected but in incubation without symptoms, to go around shedding viruses and infecting others.

The U.S. is up to 950 Confirmed and 30 deaths. That's a CFR of 3.2%. If the WHO is correct and it should be ~2.05%, then the U.S. would have in the order of 1,500 undetected infected/contagious individuals. And that's just with a crude model based on 30 deaths. With more testing operational and more on the way, hopefully they'll be able to identify more and more of the undetected, and thereby start to get a more meaningful containment in place before it goes like Italy.

[Token]

Oh man, Canoe, that ship has sailed long ago.

Three - count them - 3 Federal medical screeners at LAX airport are already confirmed infected ...

... how many infected people did they get in contact with for a typical 15 - 30 second interaction to get ill, while wearing protective gear?

Now is a time to prepare for coping with the pandemic. The time for containment is over.

Best case scenario is to slow the spread enough so our health care facilities continue to operate at capacity through this wild ride.

[motskyroonmatick]

Now is a time to prepare for coping with the pandemic. The time for containment is over.

Best case scenario is to slow the spread enough so our health care facilities continue to operate at capacity through this wild ride.

Exactly!!!