RichardGibbons Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 The other interesting black swan thing that people aren't talking about is that the more people who get this, the higher the chance of the disease mutating in a noteworthy way. That could be good (mutating into something that is even more infectious, not deadly, but gives immunity for all variants) or bad (same as now, but more deadly).
Cigarbutt Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nearly-a-third-of-coronavirus-antibody-test-participants-show-exposure-in-massachusetts Nearly a third of coronavirus antibody test participants show exposure in Massachusetts Researchers collected drops of blood from residents in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and determined that 64 people tested positive out of 200 for antibodies linked to COVID-19. Getting closer to herd immunity? At 30%, we can stop worrying about false positives. This is interesting. The debate here seems to be based on the following perspective: Is Chelsea ahead or behind the curve? -It seems that it's ahead of the curve in terms of spread. By simple extrapolation (rule of three basically without modification or modelization and using reported statistics). In a typical year, Chelsea should 'see' about 8 deaths from the flu (using state and national stats). This year, it looks like Chelsea has 'seen' so far about 40 Covid-19 deaths (not a direct number, obtained indirectly but method reasonable). This means (using a similar basic methodology) that, for the US at large to reach a similar 30% immunity, expected COVID-19 deaths would reach about 150-165k. -So, how do you want to go from here for the rest of your country?
Spekulatius Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nearly-a-third-of-coronavirus-antibody-test-participants-show-exposure-in-massachusetts Nearly a third of coronavirus antibody test participants show exposure in Massachusetts Researchers collected drops of blood from residents in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and determined that 64 people tested positive out of 200 for antibodies linked to COVID-19. Getting closer to herd immunity? At 30%, we can stop worrying about false positives. For context Chelsea is the hardest hit community in MA. ~1500 confirmed cases are 3.8% of the population. Sot this means that undetected cases are 8x confirmed cases. It’s similar NY antibody study actually. But this also means that the rest of MA is still Far behind and the rest of the US Even more so. But you are correct, Chelsea may be on the way to herd immunity, if immunity exists.
treasurehunt Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 Interesting article on excess deaths in March and April in several countries that were hit hard by COVID-19: https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c This article is not behind a paywall. The conclusion is that total fatalities from COVID-19 are likely much higher than reported deaths, even in developed countries that have good reporting systems.
Dalal.Holdings Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 Interesting article on excess deaths in March and April in several countries that were hit hard by COVID-19: https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c This article is not behind a paywall. The conclusion is that total fatalities from COVID-19 are likely much higher than reported deaths, even in developed countries that have good reporting systems. Good find. Those graphs are telling. Definitely not "like the Flu". And the sudden spikes reveal that this virus was not "spreading for months" in these regions, but rather there was a sudden surge in cases. Many assume the denominator of CFR is underestimated, but the numerator is also underestimated in many measuring attempts (a lot of amateurs don't account in the delay from onset to death for example). This is another indicator we may be missing certain deaths from covid (eg. deaths at home). Hard to parse through these things, but excess mortality is definitely occurring for all causes. For one, when hospitals in hard hit areas are full of covid patients, other patients will experience worse healthcare...which can increase mortality in those groups. A lot of noise and uncertainty with a pandemic that looks an order of magnitude deadlier than the Flu. In my book, that means precaution is warranted.
Guest cherzeca Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly
patience_and_focus Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 Interesting article on excess deaths in March and April in several countries that were hit hard by COVID-19: https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c This article is not behind a paywall. The conclusion is that total fatalities from COVID-19 are likely much higher than reported deaths, even in developed countries that have good reporting systems. Good find. Those graphs are telling. Definitely not "like the Flu". And the sudden spikes reveal that this virus was not "spreading for months" in these regions, but rather there was a sudden surge in cases. Many assume the denominator of CFR is underestimated, but the numerator is also underestimated in many measuring attempts (a lot of amateurs don't account in the delay from onset to death for example). This is another indicator we may be missing certain deaths from covid (eg. deaths at home). Hard to parse through these things, but excess mortality is definitely occurring for all causes. For one, when hospitals in hard hit areas are full of covid patients, other patients will experience worse healthcare...which can increase mortality in those groups. A lot of noise and uncertainty with a pandemic that looks an order of magnitude deadlier than the Flu. In my book, that means precaution is warranted. +1 That is the one of the important points of flattening the curve as much as possible. Because when hospitals are hit hard, the deaths due to other causes spike simply because lack of resources / fear of going to hospital, etc, etc. One can argue that even though these subjects did not get Covid, they died as a secondary effect of exponential rise in Covid infections. Other reasons of-course is to be able to ramp up testing, expand capacity for covid related supplies, develop plan and co-ordination etc when we start opening up. On another note, Denmark has decide to pay ~ 75% of every citizen's income upto a large sum until shutdown is slowly lifted. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/denmark-freezing-its-economy-should-us/608533/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mortenjensen/2020/03/31/how-denmark-is-navigating-through-the-coronavirus/#346d6019fc7e
Guest cherzeca Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 "they died as a secondary effect of exponential rise in Covid infections" no, they died as a result of a bureaucrat's mistaken policy. hospitals are underutilized. dont believe me...go visit one. there was a short period fo time when hospitals in "hot spots" like NYC had high demand of ICU beds...that has passed.
Dalal.Holdings Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 Interesting article on excess deaths in March and April in several countries that were hit hard by COVID-19: https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c This article is not behind a paywall. The conclusion is that total fatalities from COVID-19 are likely much higher than reported deaths, even in developed countries that have good reporting systems. Good find. Those graphs are telling. Definitely not "like the Flu". And the sudden spikes reveal that this virus was not "spreading for months" in these regions, but rather there was a sudden surge in cases. Many assume the denominator of CFR is underestimated, but the numerator is also underestimated in many measuring attempts (a lot of amateurs don't account in the delay from onset to death for example). This is another indicator we may be missing certain deaths from covid (eg. deaths at home). Hard to parse through these things, but excess mortality is definitely occurring for all causes. For one, when hospitals in hard hit areas are full of covid patients, other patients will experience worse healthcare...which can increase mortality in those groups. A lot of noise and uncertainty with a pandemic that looks an order of magnitude deadlier than the Flu. In my book, that means precaution is warranted. +1 That is the one of the important points of flattening the curve as much as possible. Because when hospitals are hit hard, the deaths due to other causes spike simply because lack of resources / fear of going to hospital, etc, etc. One can argue that even though these subjects did not get Covid, they died as a secondary effect of exponential rise in Covid infections. Other reasons of-course is to be able to ramp up testing, expand capacity for covid related supplies, develop plan and co-ordination etc when we start opening up. On another note, Denmark has decide to pay ~ 75% of every citizen's income upto a large sum until shutdown is slowly lifted. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/denmark-freezing-its-economy-should-us/608533/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mortenjensen/2020/03/31/how-denmark-is-navigating-through-the-coronavirus/#346d6019fc7e Yep--and in the flattening curve models, these deaths are not accounted for because they are very very hard to predict/model. Hence the flattened curve scenario seems to have a similar AUC in the models when in reality it will likely be smaller than the area under the curve of the sharp peaking scenario. Another thing that flattening allows--people to prepare (i.e. deploy a navy hospital ship to NYC, manufacture and stock up on PPE/vent, etc) and change their behaviors--social distancing, masks, etc--these things have taken some time for westerners in particular to adopt. Buying some time is generally good with something like this--as the FT article shows, there was literally a Tsunami in deaths that without significant intervention would have overwhelmed systems in place.
treasurehunt Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly Sure, but part of the point in looking at all causes mortality is to sidestep such semantic questions. If you see a lot more people dying in March and April of this year compared to the same period in the last five years, you can reasonably attribute most of the excess deaths to COVID-19 (assuming you don't find some other global phenomenon that could also be a cause). I mean this in the very basic sense that these deaths would not have occurred if not for COVID-19. A few of the excess deaths -- such as a higher number of suicides? -- might be due to the reaction to COVID-19 rather than to the disease itself; and some deaths could be due to folks with other conditions receiving worse care, as Dalal pointed out. Still, I find the excess all causes mortality data to be a decent way of estimating the impact of COVID-19.
Liberty Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly Pretty sure those who died and would be alive otherwise feel much better because of this observation.
Peregrine Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-us-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX Incredible how transmissible this virus is. In one prison, 2028 out of a total of 2,300 tested positive for the virus and close to 95% of those who tested positive had no symptoms.
Guest cherzeca Posted April 26, 2020 Posted April 26, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly Sure, but part of the point in looking at all causes mortality is to sidestep such semantic questions. If you see a lot more people dying in March and April of this year compared to the same period in the last five years, you can reasonably attribute most of the excess deaths to COVID-19 (assuming you don't find some other global phenomenon that could also be a cause). I mean this in the very basic sense that these deaths would not have occurred if not for COVID-19. A few of the excess deaths -- such as a higher number of suicides? -- might be due to the reaction to COVID-19 rather than to the disease itself; and some deaths could be due to folks with other conditions receiving worse care, as Dalal pointed out. Still, I find the excess all causes mortality data to be a decent way of estimating the impact of COVID-19. disagree insofar as mistakes in public policy are being based upon this mistaken view of covid impact. using same analysis, we should shut down country because of prostate cancer, since most every elderly male dies with prostate cancer.
Guest cherzeca Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly Pretty sure those who died and would be alive otherwise feel much better because of this observation. what makes you sure?
Investor20 Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-us-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX Incredible how transmissible this virus is. In one prison, 2028 out of a total of 2,300 tested positive for the virus and close to 95% of those who tested positive had no symptoms. APRIL 2 WHO report: "There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission." https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf Why is WHO so wrong on everything?
Guest cherzeca Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 "No conclusions can be drawn about the states that sheltered quickly, because their death rates ran the full gamut, from 20 per million in Oregon to 360 in New York. This wide variation means that other variables—like population density or subway use—were more important. Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%. That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown—but blindly copying New York’s policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn’t make sense." https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-is-most-places-the-data-say-no-11587930911?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
Investor20 Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 Sweden: There goes that lone example from the “do nothing” crowd. But what do you expect from people who lack any sense of objectivity and scientific literacy? Often wrong, never in doubt. I think at this point, the Swedes have done OK in my opinion. As long as their health care system isn’t crashing in Stockholm, where the population density is highest, their approach isn’t really a failure. They try to get herd immunity at an acceptable cost (in terms of lives). So far, by their own judgement, that is still the case and who are we to judge otherwise? Also, besides that , Sweden isn’t really normal either, they just have a soft shutdown instead off hard one. not too different from what we have in some states in the US. https://www.thelocal.se/20200424/interview-isabella-lovin-coronavirus-the-biggest-myth-about-sweden-is-that-life-is-going-on-as-normal The plot ignores several other countries: Deaths/Million from worldometer: Belgium: 612 Spain: 496 Italy: 441 France: 350 UK 305 Netherlands: 261 Ireland: 220 Sweden: 217 USA 167
cwericb Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 You can argue your graphs, studies, and statistics all you want, but when you have a mentally ill lunatic in charge of the country all those facts mean little. A few days ago I wrote here that the United States had become the laughing stock of the world. Here is what Ireland’s most respected mainstream political writer says... Irish Times April 25, 2020 By Fintan O’Toole THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity. However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful. Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic. As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.” It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence. The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV. If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated. Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas? It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways. Abject surrender What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety. Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order. In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”. Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.” This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus. It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right. Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted. The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence. Fertile ground But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it. There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection. Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder. And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here. That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality. And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element. As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics. Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.
Guest cherzeca Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 "Sweden is fighting coronavirus with common-sense guidelines that are much less economically destructive than the lockdowns in most U.S. states. Since people over 65 account for about 80% of Covid-19 deaths, Sweden asked only seniors to shelter in place rather than shutting down the rest of the country; and since Sweden had no pediatric deaths, it didn’t shut down elementary and middle schools. Sweden’s containment measures are less onerous than America’s, so it can keep them in place longer to prevent Covid-19 from recurring. Sweden did not shut down stores, restaurants and most businesses, but did shut down the Volvo automotive plant, which has since reopened, while the Tesla plant in Fremont, Calif., was shuttered by police and remains closed. How did the Swedes do? They suffered 80 deaths per million 21 days after crossing the 1 per million threshold level. With 10 million people, Sweden’s death rate‒without a shutdown and massive unemployment‒is lower than that of the seven hardest-hit U.S. states—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and New York—all of which, except Louisiana, shut down in three days or less. Despite stories about high death rates, Sweden’s is in the middle of the pack in Europe, comparable to France; better than Italy, Spain and the U.K.; and worse than Finland, Denmark and Norway. Older people in care homes accounted for half of Sweden’s deaths." https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-is-most-places-the-data-say-no-11587930911?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
Investor20 Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-us-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX Incredible how transmissible this virus is. In one prison, 2028 out of a total of 2,300 tested positive for the virus and close to 95% of those who tested positive had no symptoms. APRIL 2 WHO report: "There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission." https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf Why is WHO so wrong on everything? How does WHO think the virus is spreading so fast? They think lot of people are going around sneezing and coughing? Its beyond stupidity to say no asymptomatic transmission.
clutch Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-us-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX Incredible how transmissible this virus is. In one prison, 2028 out of a total of 2,300 tested positive for the virus and close to 95% of those who tested positive had no symptoms. APRIL 2 WHO report: "There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission." https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf Why is WHO so wrong on everything? How does WHO think the virus is spreading so fast? They think lot of people are going around sneezing and coughing? Its beyond stupidity to say no asymptomatic transmission. I'm far from approving WHO but I can tell you why. It's because they need significant scientific evidence to make any particular claim. Things like asymptomatic transmission, immunity for those infected, the benefit of wearing masks, etc., are all very hard to scientifically validate (i.e., with significant enough sample size), especially with a new virus. The problem is that many of the governments are relying on WHO because they want to act based on scientific evidence. In some sense, they have became slave to the process, while perhaps they just need to act fast and safe. Science might be the best thing the mankind has created, but it shouldn't constrain us from taking the most reasonable action.
treasurehunt Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 " total fatalities from COVID-19" is an undefined term where so many fatalities have co-morbidities and are associated with elderly Sure, but part of the point in looking at all causes mortality is to sidestep such semantic questions. If you see a lot more people dying in March and April of this year compared to the same period in the last five years, you can reasonably attribute most of the excess deaths to COVID-19 (assuming you don't find some other global phenomenon that could also be a cause). I mean this in the very basic sense that these deaths would not have occurred if not for COVID-19. A few of the excess deaths -- such as a higher number of suicides? -- might be due to the reaction to COVID-19 rather than to the disease itself; and some deaths could be due to folks with other conditions receiving worse care, as Dalal pointed out. Still, I find the excess all causes mortality data to be a decent way of estimating the impact of COVID-19. disagree insofar as mistakes in public policy are being based upon this mistaken view of covid impact. using same analysis, we should shut down country because of prostate cancer, since most every elderly male dies with prostate cancer. I am missing something about your point; I can't quite make sense of the prostate cancer analogy. Just to be clear, all I am saying is that if we expect X people to die based on past experience and in fact X+Y people die, and the only significant difference between the past and the present is COVID, then we can attribute Y deaths to COVID as a first approximation. How does this imply that we can attribute a ton of deaths to prostate cancer because a lot of elderly males have prostate cancer?
Investor20 Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-us-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX Incredible how transmissible this virus is. In one prison, 2028 out of a total of 2,300 tested positive for the virus and close to 95% of those who tested positive had no symptoms. APRIL 2 WHO report: "There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission." https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf Why is WHO so wrong on everything? How does WHO think the virus is spreading so fast? They think lot of people are going around sneezing and coughing? Its beyond stupidity to say no asymptomatic transmission. I'm far from approving WHO but I can tell you why. It's because they need significant scientific evidence to make any particular claim. Things like asymptomatic transmission, immunity for those infected, the benefit of wearing masks, etc., are all very hard to scientifically validate (i.e., with significant enough sample size), especially with a new virus. The problem is that many of the governments are relying on WHO because they want to act based on scientific evidence. In some sense, they have became slave to the process, while perhaps they just need to act fast and safe. Science might be the best thing the mankind has created, but it shouldn't constrain us from taking the most reasonable action. The scientific validation is that virus cannot spread so fast without asymptomatic transmission. How strong a scientific validation is required is based on what are the negative consequences of an action. Countries like Taiwan, Korea and Japan were worried about asymptomatic transmission and started requiring masks in January itself for everyone. I gave links to this in this thread earlier which show that by January itself they were talking about significant asymptomatic transmission in Korea and Japan. If masks did not really make a difference, at most people would have been uncomfortable for a while to wear them. What scientific validation did WHO have for lockdowns which has major downturn including as per UN hundreds of thousands of childrens death, millions pushed in poverty? Dont you require much higher scientific validation for a lockdown with major negative consequences rather than assume no asymptomatic transmission and not require masks and safe guards that mitigate asymptomatic transmission? If professional masks were not available, they could have asked people to cover their face with a cloth. It is weird to require strong scientific validation for covering face with mask or cloth and not require that for lockdown.
Viking Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 "Sweden is fighting coronavirus with common-sense guidelines that are much less economically destructive than the lockdowns in most U.S. states. Since people over 65 account for about 80% of Covid-19 deaths, Sweden asked only seniors to shelter in place rather than shutting down the rest of the country; and since Sweden had no pediatric deaths, it didn’t shut down elementary and middle schools. Sweden’s containment measures are less onerous than America’s, so it can keep them in place longer to prevent Covid-19 from recurring. Sweden did not shut down stores, restaurants and most businesses, but did shut down the Volvo automotive plant, which has since reopened, while the Tesla plant in Fremont, Calif., was shuttered by police and remains closed. How did the Swedes do? They suffered 80 deaths per million 21 days after crossing the 1 per million threshold level. With 10 million people, Sweden’s death rate‒without a shutdown and massive unemployment‒is lower than that of the seven hardest-hit U.S. states—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and New York—all of which, except Louisiana, shut down in three days or less. Despite stories about high death rates, Sweden’s is in the middle of the pack in Europe, comparable to France; better than Italy, Spain and the U.K.; and worse than Finland, Denmark and Norway. Older people in care homes accounted for half of Sweden’s deaths." https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-is-most-places-the-data-say-no-11587930911?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Yes, countries have all managed the virus in very different ways. Some, like Italy, had a health catastrophe. To suggest that Sweden’s approach would have helped in Italy makes no sense. Each country had its own unique situation (general preparedness, clusters, testing, culture, population density, geographic size etc) that required a specific response. Bottom line, when you mismanage the virus you will have to resort to lock down. This was true in Feb and this is just as true on April 26. All governments have been warned. Moving forward we will see who is up to the challenge.
clutch Posted April 27, 2020 Posted April 27, 2020 For those who argue that more people could die because of "overflow" in hospitals: At least in Canada, its quite the opposite. Operating rooms are empty while cancer patients' surgeries are getting delayed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.ctvnews.ca/national/coronavirus/2020/4/24/1_4910699.html Who knows how many of such patients would die because of delayed surgeries... And no, CTV news ain't Fox.
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