Deelee
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Deelee
I think this was sarcastic, but the point is very valid:
Corona Virus Numbers???
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azure
Final Approach
He makes some good points. But it would require truly isolating the at-risk folks and keeping them not only out of the workforce, but also out of society for a long time. That's a non-starter, as intelligent an idea as it sounds. Not legal unless it's voluntary, and if voluntary, not going to happen. The result will still likely be a tremendous strain our health system.
The best way to avoid shutting down society would be to have testing available on a massive scale, an order of magnitude or even two above where we are now. That's how S. Korea was able to flatten their curve, by testing everyone (within reason) and isolating those who were infected. It's not perfect since people can be shedding the virus well before they become symptomatic. Personally I think that is the best way to go - but we are way behind on ramping up production of testing kits. It needs to be not just a priority, but THE top priority, in order to avoid what I agree is likely to be a long-lasting economic meltdown.
azure
Final Approach
See my other post. The death rate deserves aggressive action, but we're so far behind the power curve that our choices are either a devastating epidemic or an economic crash.
FormerHangie
En-Route
Italy passed 6000 total deaths today. The number of new cases per day is starting to trend downward, so maybe they can keep it under 10,000. The U. S has about 5.5 times as many people, so if we do as well as the Italians do, we'd be looking at 50,000 deaths. If we did nothing, then who knows how many deaths.
FormerHangie
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If we start seeing enough deaths, people will self isolate, so we'll have a devastating epidemic followed by an economic crash.
azure
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Or we could shut down society and avoid the devastating epidemic. That's the way we're headed now. But the crash, I fear, is inevitable.
I have a student who says he can't focus on school because he's a graduating senior and sees the economy falling apart all around him. I wish I had words of wisdom to comfort him, but the truth is, he has good reason to be scared.
The virus doesn't scare me. There are thousands out there that could kill me. It's just one of the many reasons we don't live forever. What we are doing to our society and economy scares the living crap out of me. That WILL devastate millions.
Deelee
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Deelee
Exactly. The cure is worse. Here is the gist of it - let people out. If you are at-risk, stay in. If you are at-risk and get it, there is a chance you will not survive. If I get it even though I am not at risk, there is a chance I will not survive. The health care system will be overwhelmed. This will happen. But we will recover much faster economically and socially than if we lock ourselves in our houses for the next month or two.
azure
Final Approach
If you're not scared, you're not scared, and that's okay too. Maybe better than okay. But the truth is, you're not likely to be exposed to (most of) the thousands of others. You ARE likely to be exposed to this one.
What bothers me is that this isn't a one time thing. Does anyone seriously think there will never be another scare like this? This is the new normal. THAT is why this reaction is so dangerous. Our new normal response is to isolate ourselves. That is the end of society as we know it.
azure
Final Approach
And THIS is exactly what the powers that be are trying to avoid... you can say better to go full herd immunity and let the vulnerable die, but society won't stand for it so it's not going to happen.
Exactly. We would rather be isolated and broke than let even one old person die. Doom on us.
azure
Final Approach
Certainly there will be more scares like this. But how often do they happen? The last one happened 102 years ago. I think it's too soon to say it's the end of society as we know it.
BS. Every garden variety bug that comes out and people will be self isolating now. It's the new norm. Our leaders will be criticized if they don't order us to imprison ourselves at home. Children will be sent home from school for having a runny nose. You won't be able to go into a restaurant if you sneeze.
What scares me most is how many can't see this at all.
Deelee
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Deelee
I am not saying to let the vulnerable die. I am saying isolate the vulnerable - don't isolate everyone and wreck the economy and way of life of billions of people. Flatten the curve by isolating the at-risk people. Come up with a vaccine/cure/whatever in the meantime. Sure, some of the low-risk people will get it and die. Hell, I may be one of those people. But for god's sake keeping nations full of people inside is not a solution.
azure
Final Approach
But you can't. At least, not by mandate, not in this country. Enough will refuse to comply that the health system will still be strained.
The best solution is as I said, to make testing available on the scale it needs to be, at whatever cost necessary, THEN once most of the infected are isolated, end the shutdown. It might be shutting down the economy for a couple of weeks, but the course we're on now will mean shutting it down for months.
Things may be less dire than we think, IF the production of testing kits is being ramped up sufficiently. I'm not sure just how aggressive we're being about that.
The problem is that there is no downside to resisting doing the insane. Drinking the koolaide makes you feel better. You're doing everything you can. If it turns out not to be as big a deal as feared we'll never know because "it wasn't a big deal because of the radical reaction". I wish I liked koolaide.
azure
Final Approach
I really, really think you're thinking catastrophically. What basis do you have for saying that? This is NOT an ordinary garden-variety bug, and so far, no one has been ordered to isolate themselves to avoid the flu or anything else. This is (so far) a once in a century crisis. That could change if more bugs emerge, or countries start using genetic editing technology to create superbugs that escape from the lab (NOT saying that happened in this case, despite a conspiracy theory that blames a Wuhan lab). But so far, it's just this one, and we're way, way too close to it to start forecasting that we're going to become so afraid of our own shadow that society will end.
Deelee
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Deelee
This I agree with 100%. Regardless of the strategic or tactical approach, get a test kit in every American's hand ASAP. Like yesterday. Don't mail out checks, mail out test kids. Have national guard on every damn corner handing them out.
Completely agree with this one.
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SoonerAviator
On the bright side, he doesn't likely have many assets or other things to lose, no 401K/pensions to dissolve. He can likely live on very little doing whatever work is available, even if it's outside of his intended area of study. Same thing many did during the crash of 2008. I don't think this is going to take as long to dig out of, assuming it's only a month or two of harsh affects before people start getting back to normal. It's not like the DOW is going to rocket back to 29K by the end of the year, but I'd imagine there will be a fairly healthy bump end of year. People will rehire what was lost, could end up being a great situation for a young person looking to enter the workforce. Hard to say at this point, no reason to assume all is lost because of 2 weeks of pandemonium.
Ease up there, fella. We don't see this occurring that often, so the reaction is warranted to address the unknown/under-prepared. I have no doubt there will be some lasting effects from this incident, but I don't know that it will result in the shutting down of the economy every single time. Maybe it prompts authorities to shut down international travel more quickly to corral the infected parties before it gets out of hand. Lots of potential to craft a better response the next time 'round.
Which only means something if you know the number of people in those age brackets exposed to the virus. That's a mathematical issue that pops up in many medical screening programs.
azure
Final Approach
All true... but when you're young, and you've not lived through hard times, and it looks like the world is going crazy around you, it's easy to succumb to panic. I don't envy him. Me, most of my assets are liquid, the only thing I own that is tied to the market is my 401K and at this point I consider that gravy. I could live for several years on what I've accumulated - not indefinitely, but a few years. But he may be penniless, in deep debt due to student loans, and living totally on his own. I don't blame him in the least for being scared.
There is a town in Italy where they tested EVERYONE, and then by isolating the people who had it, they were able to get the number of new cases per day down to zero. IIRC the population of the town was only 3000 or so, but it drives home the point that we really need to be making the test a LOT more available.
Mhh, yeah. So, now we have taken those people out of the chain, for two weeks, two weeks from now we re-start the process from plenty of new 'seeds'. That graphic is missing the 'down the line' portion.
what is making testing available going to do? How does that affect my options.
Current state:
1. I feel fine -> I go to work
—a— I’m a carrier -> I get people sick
—b— I’m not a carrier -> everyone stays healthy
2. I don’t feel ok -> I don’t go to work
future state
1. I feel fine -> I go to work
—a— I’m a carrier -> I get people sick
—b— I’m not a carrier -> everyone stays healthy
2. I don’t feel fine -> I get tested
—a— I test positive -> I don’t go to work
—b— I test negative -> I don’t go to work because I still feel like crap and don’t want to give my coworkers the flu.
What has testing changed?
to make testing interesting I’d have to do random samples of the population. I’m not sure that would be legal to force on people. But it would yield a really fun data set to play with.
azure
Final Approach
Testing makes it possible to isolate the people that need to be isolated. The reason we are being locked down is that we don't know who is carrying the virus and who isn't.
And that's because one of the unusual characteristics of this virus is that a significant percentage of the carriers either have no symptoms or mild symptoms that are not easily distinguished from other causes. And carriers can pass it on without showing symptoms.
Unless you're forcing people to get tested you aren't really getting that information. If the test were available for free to everyone tomorrow, who would be going to get tested?
1. People already feeling sick (probably 95% of people that would get tested). These people may already be self-isolating anyways or they're the jerks that come to work and make everyone else sick.
2. People that came in contact with someone that tested positive (probably 3% of people that would get tested)
3. People who are paranoid (probably 1.9% of people that would get tested)
4. People who really want to make sure they're doing what's best for the community (probably .1% of people that would get tested).
I'm just not seeing what this gets you.
On the other-hand, I'd love to have the government go door-to-door testing the entire population. That would be a great data set to play with. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible (legality?).
azure
Final Approach
I'm not sure how unusual that is though. Even the flu can be transmitted by someone still in the incubation period, I believe. They just become more infectious when they are exuding virions in their cough droplets.
What is unusual about this one, I think, is that it is dangerous enough that we really need to catch - and isolate - as large a proportion of the infected population as we can.
azure
Final Approach
It gets you a larger fraction of the infected population than we are getting now. It's not perfect, no. But it was effective enough that South Korea was able to blunt the impact of their outbreak to the point where they never needed to shut the country down (as least, that is what was reported).
I don't know, but right now, I'm hearing a lot of reports of people not being able to get tested due to lack of availability of testing resources, and I really think we need to solve that problem.
azblackbird
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It’s being solved as we speak. Sh* t just don’t happen overnight. That’s why everybody’s being told to hold tight for a couple weeks while everything gets put into place. A month from now this will all be bad memory.
I hope you're right!
Short term economic hardships notwithstanding, I (almost) say cull the herd, we'll be better for it.
Today, as I flaunted quarantine to get necessities, I saw a gentleman in a big box store. His age obviously makes him at risk, shuffle and wheeze while using his cane more so. He had a pharmacy bag in his hand. He takes a leak as I scrub my hands for 20 seconds and walks out without even glancing at the wash basin. He then runs into a couple others in line that are in his way, and then grabs his shopping cart, wiping his nose a couple times before and after. I want to believe he is down on his luck, has been abandoned by his family, etc. But later I see him load up into a 2019 GLE400 4matic with a handicap tag. This tests my soul, it does.
My scientific PhD centenarian grandfather-in-law used to say stupid people shouldn't breed. Granted, he was a child of German immigrants, and of a certain generation, but . . .
Speaking of numbers, I would love to see the a statistical report that compares those who mostly quarantined versus those in 'essential businesses' versus overall population. That might help with the 'new normal' mindset. (oh crap, I used quotes, Fast Eddie is gonna get me
)
Today, as I flaunted quarantine to get necessities, I saw a gentleman in a big box store. His age obviously makes him at risk, shuffle and wheeze while using his cane more so. He had a pharmacy bag in his hand. He takes a leak as I scrub my hands for 20 seconds and walks out without even glancing at the wash basin. He then runs into a couple others in line that are in his way, and then grabs his shopping cart, wiping his nose a couple times before and after. I want to believe he is down on his luck, has been abandoned by his family, etc. But later I see him load up into a 2019 GLE400 4matic with a handicap tag. This tests my soul, it does.
My scientific PhD centenarian grandfather-in-law used to say stupid people shouldn't breed. Granted, he was a child of German immigrants, and of a certain generation, but . . .
Speaking of numbers, I would love to see the a statistical report that compares those who mostly quarantined versus those in 'essential businesses' versus overall population. That might help with the 'new normal' mindset. (oh crap, I used quotes, Fast Eddie is gonna get me
)
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azblackbird
Pattern Altitude
I totally avoid the lying POS’s that we call the mainstream media.
I’ve been listening to a show on Sirius called Dr. Radio in addition to doing my own research. We’ve got drugs that virtually eliminate this virus. Big problem is getting it out to the masses in a controlled manner. That’s being addressed as we speak also.
JOhnH
Touchdown! Greaser!
For that, and about a dozen other typos and mispellings. But who am I to criticize?(oh crap, I used quotes, Fast Eddie is gonna get me
Carry on. We know what you meant.
deonb
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deonb
Every article that makes that point contains the following fallacy - you can scan over them and find it in about 10 seconds:
"The data from South Korea, where tracking the coronavirus has been by far the best to date, indicate that as much as 99% of active cases in the general population are “mild” and do not require specific medical treatment. "
It makes the assumption that you're either part of the 1% dead, or the 99% mild. What it never does, is to look at the actual South Korea hospitalization rate, which was 10% of all positively tested cases.
In our case, where we don't test everyone, it is 20% of all cases (see CDC table below). As second source of that, as of 3 days ago, New York was at 1450 hospitilizations over 7530 cases - 19.2%. Same thing - just twice that of South Korea, not an order of magnitude different from them.
South Korea hospitals weren't overwhelmed for long enough to make any difference. Once you exceed the number of available hospital beds, you don't get an "acceptable" 1% death rate anymore. Italy is at 10% today.
Also notice the age breakdown of hospitilization below. You get to 20% hospitalization and 10% ICU admission even at the age of 50. Sure, most of them turn out ok, eventually, but overwhelm the hospitals and almost all those ICU cases and some of the hospital cases become deaths. We have 85000 ICU beds in total. It takes a 0.2% infection rate of the general population to overwhelm it.
Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19
Thanks for the callout, I know my misgivings. I left the first draft in the reply vice copy the one I let Word (which I need as a crutch, as my Mom the English Teacher rolls in her grave) make mo betta. Edit done (oops, edit finished, sorry, Mom).
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I don't think I can respond to that without violating the terms of use.
tspear
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Timothy
Salty,
You are completely missing the point. The flatten the curve and social distancing is not about containment. It is not about stopping the disease. It is about slowing the rate of infection to a point where the healthcare system can handle the load. If the healthcare system can handle the load, there is a fairly good survival rate for those hospitalized. When the healthcare system cannot handle the load, the survival rate goes down significantly.
Tim
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