That was fun!
OK, now the presser has gone downhill with nasty partisan talk from the President. Really not the time or place. People are dying. People are sick on our battleships. The projection is for 100-200K to die in the next few months. Let’s focus on the crisis, please!
Remember, though, that ~21,000 cremations above the usual number was over a month, but the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan lasted more than a month, so there may have been other months where there were substantial excess cremations compared to the normal rate. Some estimates based on observations of the number of cremation urns being returned to families and how busy funeral homes were are higher.
The Wuhan situation does mean that one needs to be cautious about case and death numbers derived only from diagnosed cases, since the number of undiagnosed-with-COVID-19 cases and deaths may be significantly higher, even if you trust that the health care and government officials are not deliberately hiding a higher case and death rate.
China’s numbers are almost certainly higher than what they admit to.
Are they as high as the 100,000 to 240,000 we are now being asked to accept as a great victory? 'Cause I don’t think a quarter million Americans dying is a great victory.
I suppose the way I had always thought about it was that the flu itself manifests in symptoms that are actually one’s immune system reacting to fight off the virus. Assuming I was reacting to the flu shot, but not an actual flu infection, the symptoms were the same.
You are brave to continue watching these. I can’t stomach them anymore.
I agree China is fudging its numbers.
About even the higher estimate of 240,000 deaths, that would be 0.07% of the US population dying, in the worst global pandemic in at least 100 years. Yes, that would be a victory.
About 0.90% of the US population dies in any given year, so at even the higher estimate, COVID-19 would account for no more than about 7.5% of the deaths. Of course, given the age profile and comorbidities of those at highest risk, some substantial portion of those deaths would have occurred this year anyway.
New Jersey is ordering additional refrigeration trailers to be placed across the state
From CNN’s Laura Ly
The New Jersey Department of Health confirmed to CNN that the state is ordering additional refrigeration trailers to be placed across the state to serve as additional locations for body storage.
“The state is ordering additional refrigeration trailers that will be placed in the northern, central and southern parts of the state for use by hospitals and nursing homes as well as the medical examiner’s offices around the state,” Donna Leusner, the communications director for the health department, told CNN.
Leusner also said the chief state medical examiner is working with the Funeral Directors Association to address their needs and concerns.
New Jersey currently has 18,696 cases of coronavirus, according to CNN Health’s tally.
More on the presser from Guardian:
As the White House predicts that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans will die from coronavirus, Trump is arguing that he is saving the country from a much worse fate.
He says 100,000 is in fact a very low number, according to modelling.
Trump is being asked whether, if the US had started social distancing and other measures earlier, would the modelling be different.
Trump says he had a decision to make early on, because “thousands and thousands” of infected people were coming to the US. He decided against the wishes of many to stop that, Trump says.
Now he is laying into New York again.
“New York started late the others didn’t start so late.”
Dr. Birx is speaking now.
She says that it’s not possible to answer the reporter’s question until antibody testing is possible.
“We need to see was the virus circling in February, in early March.”
She says her and Dr. Fauci is focussed on getting testing to determine that.
“If there was no virus in the background there was nothing to mitigate,” Dr. Fauci jumps in to say.
[ Does antibody testing date the time of infection? ]
If we had had adequate testing would we have known? the reporter asks.
Pence says Trump’s initial efforts were designed to prevent the virus from entering the US and that they have been told that bought the country significant time.
“If I can also say to every American all the questions about resources are very important,” and that the president is working very hard to address the issue of resources.
He says if Americans can practice social distancing and other measures for 30 days it will make a significant different to the crisis.
Trump says: “I do think we were very early but we also were very smart. Because we had never done that before we had never closed our borders before… we also stopped Europe very shortly after… I stopped them a long time before anyone started stopping people anywhere.”
[ Pence also said everybody was being screened arriving in the US from countries like China and Italy once travel restrictions were put in place. We know that wasn’t true at all. ]
Asked whether he lulled people into a false sense of security Trump responds, “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month.”
Healthcare workers from across the US are responding to Cuomo’s request to come help New York. It would be classy for him to recognize their sacrifice and mention it in future communications.
I like to hear things, for better or worse, with my own ears so I know what is and isn’t being twisted.
Social distancing from three days ago in Los Angeles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRVvMoEoItU&feature=youtu.be
South Korea would like a word.
NYT coronavirus obituaries.
https://www.nytimes.com/series/people-who-have-died-of-the-coronavirus
I am totally going to steal “Ever Upward” signature line from Andrew M. Cuomo
Assuming that % of total deaths/year in the US is current and accurate (reference please), what percent of deaths PRIOR to COVID-19 were due to accidents (auto, airplane, work-related, etc) surgical complications, overdoses, suicides, homicides, Cancer, heart disease, smoking or other illnesses, other viruses/infections/flus/pneumonia etc? And what is the percentage by age? In other words, without this NEW virus, what was the distribution of the causality of the annual deaths (by age) in the US? To say that this NEW virus could account in and of itself for .07% of the entire population (which is likely to be an underestimate due to the limited availability of testing) seems frightening to me. The graph here https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-seasonal-flu-in-the-us-death-rates-2020-3?amp comparing the death rate by age to deaths due to the flu is pretty darned scary.
Testing is irrelevant if you just compare same months from different years and use the excess mortality. Of course, you assume that other causes of death remain relatively stable. You may see a slight increase suicide rate from isolation but probably not enough to change the stats.
Then, you compare the numbers with the ones from similar viral outbreaks ( again, the closest that comes to mind is H1N1 )
3M Takes On Price Gougers
By Austen Hufford
3M is stepping up efforts to stop price gougers and counterfeit products, as skyrocketing demand for face masks during to the coronavirus pandemic leaves them in short supply.
The mask maker is creating a fraud hotline and releasing standard per-mask prices. The company says its N-95 masks range in price from 63 cents to$3.40, depending on the product.
“Customers should be suspicious of resellers quoting prices significantly above those listed,” the company says.
Companies, Health
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/coronavirus-2020-03-31?mod=article_inline&mod=hp_lead_pos13
I guess someone at 3M read Mark Cuban’s rant 2 days ago for allowing tremendous markups by “distributors” 2 days ago!
Yeah, I’m pretty sure no one but the avid covid-deniers are going to consider 250,000 deaths a victory, especially when many of those deaths were avoidable and people still can’t get tested.
That could be an awful lot of people for whom, without testing, the official cause of death will be listed as respiratory failure or pneumonia, multi system failure or what have, you rather than COVID-19. Would not minimize that fact. Testing IS relevant.
And there are also people trying to get tested that just don’t meet testing guidelines at all but still want to be tested. Luckily, there is screening for that.
I don’t think anybody considers death a victory, most people talk about realistic best and worst case scenarios.
Some deaths are avoidable, some are not. For example, if I have an Alzheimer bed bound patient who can’t safely swallow food anymore, I know that the life expectancy is 6 -12 mo, probably even lower, no matter what I do ( statistics, that’s all ). That means that any breeze of disease is likely to tip the scale.