OT: Corona virus

[Cap Mandrake]

On the other hand, you have to include the massive reduction in human suffering from not doing colonoscopy preps.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A few weeks ago, there were reports that the mortality rate for Covid would end up at 0.1% or thereabouts. That's roughly in line with seasonal flu and means that one out of a thousand infected patients would be expected to die (that's what I think it means, anyhow). That information is a few weeks old, so there may have been adjustments. But nobody's been talking 2% after about April 1.

This is a from May 5 about a half hour:


German virologist: Covid-19 is less deadly than we thought

Freddie Sayers talks to Professor Hendrik Streeck about why he thinks lockdown measures were initiated too quickly, and how his findings show a Covid-19 fatality rate of 0.24-0.36%.

The deadliness of Covid-19, measured by the “Infected Fatality Rate” or what percentage of infected people end up dying, has become an issue of global significance.

At UnHerd, we’ve spoken to experts at both ends of the range of estimates, from Neil Ferguson (who believes the IFR to be just under 1%, perhaps 0.8-0.9%) to Johan Giesecke who maintains that it is nearer 0.1%, or one in a thousand.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrL9QKGQrWk

[durnedwolf]

Well if we are trying to do the herd immunity thing then we should be opening in dibs and drabs (as we appear to be doing). It looks like our medical system is not overwhelmed and the curve looks pretty flat to me. I don't see any credible news about building immunity from plasma yet, and no one seems to have a "cure." Heck - they are still trying to ramp up the ability to do testing.

But holy bat-crap, batman! A lot of people have passed on to the other side from this virus.

We are living in a historic moment. It gives me a new viewpoint for history as a learning subject.

[Cap Mandrake]

lockdown effects in the Third World are much worse. TB treatment, HIV treatment, vaccines...all are essentially running on empty. 6000 people died from measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year and now they are essentially out of vaccine. We almost had polio eliminated from the planet...now it will take years to make up lost ground. There are millions in Africa with HIV. Maybe hundreds of millions with TB around the world. Then you have crop failures, starvation, wars..etc.

When the First World countries shut down...the shit rolls down hill.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
We almost had polio eliminated from the planet...now it will take years to make up lost ground.

That probably makes Bill Gates mad, as it is his cause celeb I believe.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

On the other hand, you have to include the massive reduction in human suffering from not doing colonoscopy preps.

Not to mention the part where they person can now have a doctor state that on such and such a day, the person was examined and was found not to be full of $hit. Pictures as well could be used. [8D]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

lockdown effects in the Third World are much worse. TB treatment, HIV treatment, vaccines...all are essentially running on empty. 6000 people died from measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year and now they are essentially out of vaccine. We almost had polio eliminated from the planet...now it will take years to make up lost ground. There are millions in Africa with HIV. Maybe hundreds of millions with TB around the world. Then you have crop failures, starvation, wars..etc.

When the First World countries shut down...the shit rolls down hill.

Not only does it roll downhill, it picks up speed. [:D]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: USSAmerica

ORIGINAL: obvert

Just a quick post on this OT event. Sebastian was born on May 11 at 21:53 in London. Everyone is now home and healthy, napping actually. [:)]

Many congratulations, Eric!

Yes, many congratulations!

Now you can tell your wife to take some good, long pees!

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
We almost had polio eliminated from the planet...now it will take years to make up lost ground.

The Gates Foundation is funding a malaria vaccine but they might well be helping with polio too.
That probably makes Bill Gates mad, as it is his cause celeb I believe.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Lokasenna, we must be looking at different charts and information.

The IHME increase was yesterday. Georgia's projected toll dropped from 3,500 to 2,000 (and one day earlier it was at 4,900). Clearly, IHME doesn't foresee problems with the easing in Georgia. Ditto many other states, but not all.

As for the RT rates, there's nothing on any of the charts I see indicating a margin of error for Ro at or above 1.0 for Georgia. We must be looking at different charts.

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The press and those medically and/or politically opposed to re-opening predicted surges in new cases and morality when shelter-in-place ended in some states. But the Ro rates remain level or close thereto, including: Colorado, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Montana, Mississippi, Kansas and Idaho (source: https://rt.live/). The rates in each of those states is below 1.0, meaning the pandemic continues to decline. It's possible that the wheels may come off here or there, but to this point sky-is-falling assertions have been wrong.

It hasn't been a disaster, no.

But the jump in IHME modeled fatalities (up another 10k today, to 147k by August 4th) is a direct result of the easing of countermeasures.

On the very day that the first gaggle of states announced they were going to end their lockdowns early, the IHME updated their numbers - from ~70K to >100K. That's a pretty big effect. We'll pass 100K confirmed dead in about another week.

The day I was referring to was weeks ago, not yesterday.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

If there really are 50 primary cases from the "curious" guy in South Korea that is an R0=50

What the heck was the guy DOING?

Are you asking from a professional point of view or from a personal interest?

Just "curious"[:)]

It does occur to me that in order to "successfully" infect 50 others in 3 hrs it might require actual INTENT to do so. I wonder if it is some kind of self-loathing rage or even hatred of gays.

I think all it would take is for him to take a particularly virus-y hand and touch a surface (or several surfaces) that dozens of other people are going to touch.

A bathroom door handle.

The knob of a faucet on a sink (ALWAYS use the paper towel to turn off the faucet, guys - don't touch that sh.. directly).

A pen or payment method at the bar.

Etc.


Or - crowded dance floor and a few coughs or even just breathing out a cloud of virus particles.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth



The gold standard of mortality won’t be available for a year or two. At that time you will be able to determine a simple number. Using years and years of historical records you determine two numbers. How many people were expected to die in 2020 In a a world without Covid, against how many actually did. Subtract one from the other and you have “excess mortality”. That is how many were killed, by all causes, from Covid. All causes: Covid, suicide, delayed medical care, people that should have gone to a doctor but didn’t, ect

With all due respect, that number you cited-the 'excess mortality' number gleaned in the future won't directly address COVID deaths alone. As we are all finding out, deaths caused by suicide, depression, alcohol or drug abuse, physical abuse, delayed surgeries, etc. aren't directly attributable to COVID, but our response to COVID. It is entirely possible that our overzealous response may have put more people in harms' way than it has saved. We need to be able to suss this number from the COVID-specific deaths to have meaningful insight into how to deal with these things in the future. Assigning our self-wrought troubles (and ALL 'excess mortality') to COVID would be too simplistic.

Although, few are looking for the lives saved by lockdowns. I posted two separate studies a while back on lives saved due to pollution reduction and less traffic on the roads and fewer accidents. In CA alone fatal accidents were halved over the period measured. In the study on pollution in Europe an estimated 11,000+ lives were saved/extended during the month of study due to lower pollution rates, and other health conditions like asthma and early term births were lessened as well.

There are possibly more reasons people might be less vulnerable to certain causes of death in lockdown. Those should all be part of the count too.

So far worldwide suicides are tracking normally, as I posted in the same area.

Due to the connection between Covid and heart conditions that one is going to be hard to sort out in the end. Possibly also other underlying conditions where someone never was tested for Covid but died of another cause, yet had the virus.

It's all a big mess, but very complex.

Yeah, if we're going to track externalities, then we need to count the positives. Can't just count the negatives.

That's such a complex task to even semi-accurately tally, though, that it's not even something we should be doing right now. That's going to have to wait - probably a few years, too.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Early in this thread, there was a chart posted showing transmissibility (Ro) vs. lethality of Covid-19. It showed the same rates for other infectious diseases, including the 1918 Spanish flu-type. My recollection is that the chart (this is at least two months ago) indicated Covid-19 was more transmissible but less lethal than the 1918 flu.

At that time, Covid's Ro was estimated, I believe, at around 2.5 or 2.8. Lethality was then above 1%.

I assume the Ro has remained the same, but through countermeasures the "manipulated" Ro has dropped below 1.0 for about 90% of the states and for the country as a whole and for most other nations. And lethality is somewhere closer to 0.1%, much less than estimated early on.

I'd be interested to see that chart again and any analysis into how the estimated rates might've changed since. How does it compare to 1918 now?

Overall, we met the early objective of flattening the curve. The Ro rate has proven susceptible to countermeasures. We've begun easing them, in some cases as much as a month ago. And thus far the results are very promising. The main problems continue to be confined to limited areas, in many cases in jurisdictions that haven't begun easing. In those that have, flare ups have been limited.

I believe you mean less lethal on an individual basis, which would perhaps be correct (maybe even probably or almost certainly; I haven't checked the numbers as I don't think we have an apple to compare to the 1918 flu's apple, nor do I think we will until perhaps sometime in 2021).

Jury's still out on population-level mortality, though.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A few weeks ago, there were reports that the mortality rate for Covid would end up at 0.1% or thereabouts. That's roughly in line with seasonal flu and means that one out of a thousand infected patients would be expected to die (that's what I think it means, anyhow). That information is a few weeks old, so there may have been adjustments. But nobody's been talking 2% after about April 1.

The difference being that many multiples more people would have COVID-19 than would have seasonal flu, meaning many multiples more deaths.

I mean hell, we've already hit the rough range of the absolute number of deaths for the seasonal flu and with many confirmed fewer infections. The CDC estimates that between 9.3M and 49M people get the flu every year in the US. Even given that our rate of testing is relatively abysmal, it's pretty unlikely that we're missing out on that many millions of untested positive cases. As of today, total US confirmed positive was at 1.4M - with 85.6K deaths. That's a confirmed-case mortality rate of 6%. In order to be around a 0.1% mortality rate, that would mean roughly 85M people would need to be infected. That's simply implausible.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Our mall is just a couple of miles down the road. For many years, I've routinely taken my lunch there, purchased a large unsweet ice tea, and read while eating. I resumed doing so last week, after a six-week Covid-hiatus. At first, there was next to nobody in the food court or in line at the vendors. Today was noticeably, remarkably more busy. People are definitely much more active. As best I can tell, there remains a wariness and caution about the wheels possibly coming off. Set against that feeling is an increasing confidence in returning to a more active work- and lifestyle. People are careful and polite in maintaining social distancing and being courteous. All restaurant employees wear masks. Only a few customers do - probably less than ten percent. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities remain on lockdown.

I hope I’m wrong and leaving politics aside I honestly feel that there is a strong current of “ contrary for the sake of being contrary” in this country. Folks may put a patriotic face on it but I am truly afraid that said contrary streak is going to get us in an awful lot of trouble this time. This microbe is heartless, mindless, unrelenting and doesn’t give a fig if you are blue or red or white or brown or what courts or Governors or TV pundits or newspapers say. It will stop when the virus says it stops and if we do nothing or little we will reap the whirlwind. Time will prove me right or wrong. I sincerely hope I am wrong

I heard, by which I mean you should question, on the radio hourly news update that 50% of Americans are tapping into their retirement savings because of Covid. In addition that 1/3 of credit card holders are getting their allowable credit reduced.

I kind of give credence to this considering my background. A small business owner is ineligible for unemployment. Their business value (if impacted by lockdwon) is now approaching 0 if not badly into the red.

It simply seems to me that they are damned if they do and certainly damned if they don't. The rational decision is to open up and face the uncertain virus and govt reaction over the certain economic death.

The economic damage is incalculable and will not come back fast. We will hit 20% unemployment and anyone that thinks it will come down to anything close to what it was is either selling you something or running for something (if you choose to think there is a distinction). Here is something else under the iceberg of 30 million unemployed. In this country almost all health insurance is tied to your employment. Yes, there is COBRA, but if you are laid off you need to pay both your share and the former employers share of health insurance so almost everyone will do without. So now we have tens of millions of unemployed people and few of them have health insurance. What can go wrong? More than a few economists have stated it will be 10 years or more before we see sub 5% unemployment again. One of the things our country does worst is train people that are transitioning out of obsolete jobs. So now we have tens of millions that are unemployed, uninsured, probably have some significant debt and have to be retrained for a different job. Hope is never a good strategy but once again, I hope I'm not reading the tea leaves correctly.

I know nothing about running a small business but I do know a few people that run them. Rule #1 is set up the business so you, the owner, are also an employee. So you can lay yourself off and collect unemployment. Yes, it is a little more expensive in good times, but it is paying big dividends now.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

If preventive health care actually works, there will be downstream consequences from delayed or missed preventive measures (colonoscopy, mammograms, cervical exam, diabetes checks, eye checks for diabetes, blood pressure management, preventive vaccinations etc. etc)

You won't see these problems in two months.

Yeah. I've got moles I need to get checked out, and was putting off until February-ish, and then... I mean, I don't think any of them are cancerous, but I'm at high risk. It's been >5 years since I had a dermatologist look at them, and about 18 months now since I had a GP look at them.

It's also been a few years since I got a standard physical, and since it's free I'd like to do it. I'll technically be in my mid-30s later this year.


But really, I'm just hoping that I can get my eyes done this year. There might be a small window in late summer...

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: durnedwolf

Well if we are trying to do the herd immunity thing then we should be opening in dibs and drabs (as we appear to be doing). It looks like our medical system is not overwhelmed and the curve looks pretty flat to me. I don't see any credible news about building immunity from plasma yet, and no one seems to have a "cure." Heck - they are still trying to ramp up the ability to do testing.

But holy bat-crap, batman! A lot of people have passed on to the other side from this virus.

We are living in a historic moment. It gives me a new viewpoint for history as a learning subject.

We just need more testing.

We need more testing.

We've squandered the first 2 months of lockdowns when we should've been making gigantic, national efforts at expanding testing.

We still don't have enough tests to be able to implement the "dance" phase that's supposed to come after the "hammer" phase (I really dislike the terms used in that analogy, they're terrible choices).

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
We almost had polio eliminated from the planet...now it will take years to make up lost ground.

That probably makes Bill Gates mad, as it is his cause celeb I believe.

Cause celebre, however the term is usually used for a controversial action... I wouldn't think that eradicating polio would be controversial among the overwhelming proportion of the populous that has a functioning brain.

His foundation is interested in public health in general, mostly on a global scale.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth


I know nothing about running a small business but I do know a few people that run them. Rule #1 is set up the business so you, the owner, are also an employee. So you can lay yourself off and collect unemployment. Yes, it is a little more expensive in good times, but it is paying big dividends now.

States vary on this. In Pennsylvania there is no way for your average sophisticated business owner to do this. Perhaps somebody with multiple businesses might be able to pull it off but they would likely not do it since the amount of money awarded is relatively small. Plus if you are simply self employed, you are out of luck too.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth




I hope I’m wrong and leaving politics aside I honestly feel that there is a strong current of “ contrary for the sake of being contrary” in this country. Folks may put a patriotic face on it but I am truly afraid that said contrary streak is going to get us in an awful lot of trouble this time. This microbe is heartless, mindless, unrelenting and doesn’t give a fig if you are blue or red or white or brown or what courts or Governors or TV pundits or newspapers say. It will stop when the virus says it stops and if we do nothing or little we will reap the whirlwind. Time will prove me right or wrong. I sincerely hope I am wrong

I heard, by which I mean you should question, on the radio hourly news update that 50% of Americans are tapping into their retirement savings because of Covid. In addition that 1/3 of credit card holders are getting their allowable credit reduced.

I kind of give credence to this considering my background. A small business owner is ineligible for unemployment. Their business value (if impacted by lockdwon) is now approaching 0 if not badly into the red.

It simply seems to me that they are damned if they do and certainly damned if they don't. The rational decision is to open up and face the uncertain virus and govt reaction over the certain economic death.

The economic damage is incalculable and will not come back fast. We will hit 20% unemployment and anyone that thinks it will come down to anything close to what it was is either selling you something or running for something (if you choose to think there is a distinction). Here is something else under the iceberg of 30 million unemployed. In this country almost all health insurance is tied to your employment. Yes, there is COBRA, but if you are laid off you need to pay both your share and the former employers share of health insurance so almost everyone will do without. So now we have tens of millions of unemployed people and few of them have health insurance. What can go wrong? More than a few economists have stated it will be 10 years or more before we see sub 5% unemployment again. One of the things our country does worst is train people that are transitioning out of obsolete jobs. So now we have tens of millions that are unemployed, uninsured, probably have some significant debt and have to be retrained for a different job. Hope is never a good strategy but once again, I hope I'm not reading the tea leaves correctly.

I know nothing about running a small business but I do know a few people that run them. Rule #1 is set up the business so you, the owner, are also an employee. So you can lay yourself off and collect unemployment. Yes, it is a little more expensive in good times, but it is paying big dividends now.

Not just for unemployment reasons but also legal liability. Have the company with the sign on the door own the letterhead and not much else. It leases everything else from another company that you also own. You are an employee of the company with the letterhead and all of your employment expenses are now tax deductible, including your solid platinum healthcare which includes dental and optical, not to mention your retirement savings plus the maximum matching funds from the company.

When I say that "you" own it, your family members can also own a share. This way the entire family can go to a shareholders meeting at a resort, restaurant, or wherever. You can also hire the children and pay them a wage instead of giving them an allowance. [;)]