coronavirus

[morekaos]

Keep a watch on the death rates...after all, isn't that really what matters?

Why this Nobel laureate predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: 'We're going to be fine'

Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.

Now he foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world.

While many epidemiologists are warning of months, or even years, of massive social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt says the data simply don't support such a dire scenario ? especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.

"What we need is to control the panic," he said. In the grand scheme, "we're going to be fine."

Here's what Levitt noticed in China: On Jan. 31, the country had 46 new deaths due to the novel coronavirus, compared with 42 new deaths the day before.

Although the number of daily deaths had increased, the rate of that increase had begun to ease off. In his view, the fact that new cases were being identified at a slower rate was more telling than the number of new cases itself. It was an early sign that the trajectory of the outbreak had shifted.

Think of the outbreak as a car racing down an open highway, he said. Although the car was still gaining speed, it's not accelerating as rapidly as before.

?This suggests that the rate of increase in number of the deaths will slow down even more over the next week,? Levitt wrote in a report he sent to friends Feb. 1 that was widely shared on Chinese social media. And soon, he predicted, the number of deaths would be decreasing every day.

Three weeks later, Levitt told the China Daily News that the virus' rate of growth had peaked. He predicted that the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in China would end up around 80,000, with about 3,250 deaths.

This forecast turned out to be remarkably accurate: As of March 16, China had counted a total of 80,298 cases and 3,245 deaths ? in a nation of nearly 1.4 billion people where roughly 10 million die every year. The number of newly diagnosed patients has dropped to around 25 a day, with no cases of community spread reported since Wednesday.

https://news.yahoo.com/why-nobel-laureate-predicts-quicker-210318391.html

 

[irvinebullhousing]

But trying to save everyone/flatten the curve comes at a cost.

At some point the cost becomes to great. You can?t ruin society to flatten the curve. There will probably be more deaths from suicides/crimes as a result of trying to flattening the curve from all the people whose lives were ruined by trying to flatten the curve.

Everyone has a limit. We all know what the stakes are, but you can't keep imposing new restrictions on people for an indefinite time. No amount of "education" can make people sacrifice themselves for the "common good" because underneath our very thin veneer of civilization, we are still very much the wild animals that our ancestors were.
At some point, people will say enough. Then what? Is the state going to use force? Deadly force? Unless we step back and calmly look at the big picture, we are headed to Mad Max world.

That?s is why the national guards rolling around. I can see a two weeks lock down but if it goes to 4, 6, 8 then they keep on extending, then every man for himself. I hopes after the two or three weeks a more sensible approach will enact. Otherwise, unrest and riot will take place.

 

[Cornflakes]

@Nosuchreality - there is no hair ant that this thing is not going to come back even with all of the current measures. Even if it was eradicated in the next month in the US, it needs to be eradicated world wide and in a similar time frame. With the world being interconnected if we stop it and the rest of the world doesn?t it will just come back. We are just going to have to deal with the consequences until there are treatments/vaccines.

I know this is not the flu, but somehow we have to terms that the flu comes every year and people are going to die. I still don?t understand why the world is stopping for this particular disease when it never has for others.

People die every day for different reasons. This is just another one.

qwerty, In my opinion, the mortality rate is the driving factor. Right now, approx. every 5th or 6th infected person requires medical treatment (~18%). The best mortality rates of sub 1% are in Germany and USA where healthcare systems are not yet strained to the limit. Italy has 9% mortality rate, meaning half of the people that needed medical care end up being dead.

If and when our healthcare systems is overstretched, it will be like China where citizens were forcefully locked into their own homes and leave it to their fate for survival.

Consider this:
1. The U.S. had an estimated 728,000 medical and surgical hospital beds available to the public in 2018, or 2.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people, according to the Urban Institute's analysis.

2. On a typical day, 36 percent of the 728,000 beds were unoccupied, leaving 0.8 beds per 1,000 people.

Source:https://www.beckershospitalreview.c...elm-hospitals-near-you-16-things-to-know.html

It is not going to take much to fill up the empty beds. Ok, you can put up the tents and increase capacity 10x with heroic efforts. But then, you need 10x of everything... staff, medical devices, meds, ventilators, ambulances,

we can go from a consumption-driven economy to triaging health of citizens economy in a matter of weeks. No doubt flattening the curve is an expensive affair, but the alternative is much more expensive and a big unknown.

 

[qwerty]

Trump was already tweeting yesterday that we need to get back to normal soon. My guess is that is not long after 3/31. He has plenty of supporters (regular people, both republican and Democrat) who share his view and he controls the armed forces.

 

[zubs]

China's numbers are suspect.  Don't use their numbers.  We should look at Italy and Spain as they have open reporting.
I take issue with that headline "Italy's death from corona virus surpasses China!!!!"
It's full of shit because CCP are a bunch of liars.

 

[Happiness]

If things go to shit, remember that the US does not have a Janissary Corps or a Praetorian Guard. Our armed forces consists of regular citizens who have the same concerns as regular citizens.

 

[Irvinehomeseeker]

Looking at the latest numbers for US , it doesn't look like the situation will be as bad here like in Italy atleast. Number of positives has gone up, but the mortality rate is not close any where that Italy was reporting with comparable number of positive counts.

 

[qwerty]

@cornflakes

?we can go from a consumption-driven economy to triaging health of citizens economy in a matter of weeks. No doubt flattening the curve is an expensive affair, but the alternative is much more expensive and a big  unknown?

I don?t think the alternative is more expensive than what is happening now. Trillions of wealth has been destroyed. Small business are being crushed and regular employees as well. And the known is a worldwide depression.  Not sure it can get worse than that.

 

[eyephone]

Looking at the latest numbers for US , it doesn't look like the situation will be as bad here like in Italy atleast. Number of positives has gone up, but the mortality rate is not close any where that Italy was reporting with comparable number of positive counts.

Look at NY

 

[irvinehomeowner]

It will be interesting to see who survives this.

A bunch of chain casual restaurants have closed temporarily, won't even do takeout.

The ones that are still doing take out are the smaller ones and the fast food chains.

Some are doing free delivery... not sure how that works because who is going to pay the DoorDash/GrubHub/UberEats people?

And then even if you take out or get food delivered... is the food/packaging covid-free?

 

[qwerty]

My guess is the grocery store may be worse than delivery. The cashiers at grocery stores use gloves but they don?t switch them after each guest. So if someone is sick and goes grocery shopping the cashier can touch their stuff and then touch everyone else?s grocery?s. Not sure what kind of risk involved there. The same is probably true at restaurants though unless you use McDonalds drive through and pay through the app

 

[Kenkoko]

I don?t think the alternative is more expensive than what is happening now. Trillions of wealth has been destroyed. Small business are being crushed and regular employees as well. And the known is a worldwide depression.  Not sure it can get worse than that.

To say that definitively, we'd have to place a price tag on each death right?

I agree that the decision to shut down the economy is in some ways as dangerous as the virus itself.

But have we really played out the alternative scenario tho?

The alternative is people dying in the streets, completely collapsed healthcare system and most public services. Riots and social unrest? We are a country with over 300 million firearms, enough for each man woman and child.

Are we truly comfortable both as individuals and as a society to accept half a million,1 million, or 2 million preventable deaths simply because it?s too expensive and ?hey people die every day for different reasons anyway??

 

[qwerty]

If it got that bad, the people rioting would be much less because ultimately we are all selfish and those who aren?t sick would not be rioting.

It?s not simply that it?s too expensive - we are dereailing peoples lives, about 300 million pretty soon. So saving 1-2 million lives from Coronavirus > 300 million ruined lives?  Suicides, divorces, crime, etc.

I appreciate that you and others are concerned about saving lives. I agree that we should do whatever is reasonable to save lives (work from home when possible, distancing, etc).

I just have a problem when it become unreasonable.

 

[Kings]

I don?t think the alternative is more expensive than what is happening now. Trillions of wealth has been destroyed. Small business are being crushed and regular employees as well. And the known is a worldwide depression.  Not sure it can get worse than that.

To say that definitively, we'd have to place a price tag on each death right?

I agree that the decision to shut down the economy is in some ways as dangerous as the virus itself.

But have we really played out the alternative scenario tho?

The alternative is people dying in the streets, completely collapsed healthcare system and most public services. Riots and social unrest? We are a country with over 300 million firearms, enough for each man woman and child.

Are we truly comfortable both as individuals and as a society to accept half a million,1 million, or 2 million preventable deaths simply because it?s too expensive and ?hey people die every day for different reasons anyway??

we've been putting a price tag on life and death since the beginning of time.  this is no different.  you paint a picture of riots, unrest and people dying in the streets because we didn't hide in our homes long enough.  i will paint a picture of riots, unrest, and people dying in the streets because we hid in our homes for too long.  where is the balance?

 

[aquabliss]

I still don't understand why we're not considering an immediate lockdown (no leaving your house for any reason except to go to the ER) executive order for those 60+.  Those with severe immune disorders should be given the electable choice.  Anyone 0-59 can continue on with their business.  Let it burn through the herd of 0-59 year olds and yes there will still be carnage but significantly less.

I fear taking a drastic measure like this will be the only way to save our economy.  Doesn't everyone get the feeling that 2-3 weeks from now the curve won't be flat and they'll just institute martial law anyhow?
I certainly don't want to be anywhere in Los Angeles in 3 months when 40% are out of work, can't afford rent and food, and start torching palm trees again.  May God save us all.

 

[Kenkoko]

Sure, this is a lose lose situation, no matter how you look at it. I think logical minds can see that clearly. We are stuck with dissecting which is the slightly better option.

If you look at other countries with better success at bending the curve without lock-down, like Japan, S Korea, or Taiwan. Their stock market tanked, and economies are facing recession as well.

Lock-down contributes to the depth of the economic destruction but certainly didn't cause it. We were already heading into a deep recession with or without a lock-down.

We are essentially arguing about picking lesser severity of economic destruction but more deaths and completely collapsed healthcare system etc.

Missing the crucial window of opportunity to suppress and contain, when we had low number of COVID-19 case, put us in this situation. We could have done tracing and quarantine when there were just limited cases. Once we are passed that, we?re in full mitigation mode which is a world of pain regardless of what we do from here on out.

 

[irvinebullhousing]

I still don't understand why we're not considering an immediate lockdown (no leaving your house for any reason except to go to the ER) executive order for those 60+.  Those with severe immune disorders should be given the electable choice.  Anyone 0-59 can continue on with their business.  Let it burn through the herd of 0-59 year olds and yes there will still be carnage but significantly less.

I fear taking a drastic measure like this will be the only way to save our economy.  Doesn't everyone get the feeling that 2-3 weeks from now the curve won't be flat and they'll just institute martial law anyhow?
I certainly don't want to be anywhere in Los Angeles in 3 months when 40% are out of work, can't afford rent and food, and start torching palm trees again.  May God save us all.

I vote for aquabliss to be our next president. This is a sensible approach that I was talking about.

 

[qwerty]

I still don't understand why we're not considering an immediate lockdown (no leaving your house for any reason except to go to the ER) executive order for those 60+.  Those with severe immune disorders should be given the electable choice.  Anyone 0-59 can continue on with their business.  Let it burn through the herd of 0-59 year olds and yes there will still be carnage but significantly less.

I fear taking a drastic measure like this will be the only way to save our economy.  Doesn't everyone get the feeling that 2-3 weeks from now the curve won't be flat and they'll just institute martial law anyhow?
I certainly don't want to be anywhere in Los Angeles in 3 months when 40% are out of work, can't afford rent and food, and start torching palm trees again.  May God save us all.

I vote for aquabliss to be our next president. This is a sensible approach that I was talking about.

While this is a practical approach (relatively speaking), I wouldn?t be surprised if some group sued on behalf of senior citizens that they are being discriminated against and their civil liberties are are being violated

 

[nosuchreality]

Well, we are basically going to fly blind.  NY is restricting testing to the hospitals.

As for the economy, let?s ask different questions.  International flights, when do you think you will be able to go and not get quarantined when you get there?

When do you think people go back to their consumer behavior?

There seems to be lots of hope pinned on under 59 it doesn?t really affect them. Or under 40.  From mortality rates, but that is also a very different scenario once health care gets tapped out.  I?ve seen the study that puts the 20-29 group at 0.2% which is 10x a bad flu year, and the older groups don?t fair better.  That?s without a healthcare collapse.

Before we agree to play Russian Roulette can we verify most of the chambers aren?t loaded?  Maybe run some large random samples to determine how many out there are affected, that will give us some numbers to balance infection rates.

 

[Cornflakes]

Chicago to rent out thousands of hotel rooms for COVID-19 patients
Anuja Vaidya (Twitter) - an hour ago Print | Email
   
As U.S. hospitals struggle to figure out ways to manage the expected influx of COVID-19 patients, the city of Chicago is moving ahead with one strategy ? renting out thousands of rooms in hotels to isolate confirmed and suspected cases of the new coronavirus illness, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Now that is creative! It makes perfect sense. Roll in needed supplies and station a team of HCPs to manage the patients that require level 1 basic care. If patients worsen in their medical condition, they get elevated to actual hospital care where there are all the fancy equipment, meds, and professionals are available.