Oh, there are plenty of scientists who disagree. It is not difficult to find them, if you step beyond the pages of the NYT…
No reason to shut down the thread. We’re all adults here. Folks should ignore what they don’t wish to read. Or use the ignore feature if they wish.
As long as discussion is civil, who is it hurting?
To any new moderators, many of us don’t want heavy handed moderation.
^^ In addition, just because some users invoked moderators involvement (many pages back), doesn’t mean you have to react to it. Leave it be please.
Seriously? You are not aware of the Imperial College model and its front man, Neil Ferguson?
Very easy to google and find the original paper that formed the basis of much governmental policy, but I like this critical article to start:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/professor-lockdown-modeler-resigns-in-disgrace/
The 2.2 million dead prediction was the worst case scenario of death in the U. S. made by Niall Ferguson of the Imperial College, London. The same man who had his mistress continue to visit him for bootie calls while COVID positive.
My grocery store had about 30 bottles of hand sanitizer in stock this morning. It was an off brand I had never heard of or seen before.
Fortunately I didn’t need any, but I do sometimes wonder what happened to the prominent brands such as Germ-X. Are they only selling to hospitals these days or what?
Unfortunately the store was out of disinfecting wipes and Rice-a-Roni (???) although they had them the past three weeks. Hopefully now that things are opening up we’ll see some corrections in the supply chain soon.
That was very interesting. Thank you for sharing!
The question of whether or not children transmit covid-19 readily is one of the key considerations, I think. Other than the study that came out of Australia, I haven’t heard of any others.
One of the options being considered by many districts is the hybrid model of online and in-person classes. Do teachers then have to be teaching some students online and others in-person? That seems like a lot of extra work.
And as far as daily temperature checks, I have no doubt that some parents will dose their children up to mask a fever, just as they have always done.
Cleaning protocols will be stringent at first, then be relaxed as time goes on.
I’d be very concerned if I were a staff member.
Mocking people for reading the NYT and then citing some article from a conservative ragsheet. Ironic much…
That said, the guy resigned b/c he had a ladyfriend over when he was strongly recommending social distancing. Dumb choice on his part, no question about that.
I haven’t seen disinfecting wipes in any store since early March where I live. I happened to luck out and get a few cannisters from Amazon. 30 seconds after I hit “purchase item” I went back to get a few for D2. They were out of stock.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html indicates that flu death rates have been between 0.096% to 0.18% over the past decade.
However, these are (estimated deaths) / (estimated symptomatic illnesses).
For COVID-19, the (confirmed deaths) / (estimated symptomatic illnesses) is 0.2% to 1.0% (with scenario 5 “current best estimate” being 0.4%) according to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html .
But note that confirmed deaths and estimated deaths are not the same, with estimated deaths for the flu including those who died outside of hospitals with death certificates indicating probable flu. So an apples-to-apples comparison would likely have a larger number of estimated deaths compared to confirmed deaths for COVID-19. Remember that shortage of testing meant that many COVID-19 deaths were probably not known as such (the earliest known US COVID-19 death was on 2/6, but that was not known until 4/21; prior to 4/21, the first US COVID-19 death was believed to have been on 2/26).
In addition, COVID-19 is known to cause longer term injury or disability in recovered patients, but there appears to be little research about how common this is. Some people who may not be too worried about the risk of death may not want to play a negative lottery of unknown odds with respect to longer term injury or disability.
In any case, there do not seem to be many people (even those claiming how minor a risk COVID-19 is) intentionally getting infected so that they can join the herd immunity more quickly and at a time they can schedule for the least inconvenience to themselves.
I went to a university hospital clinic today. It was not an experience I want to repeat.
Parking garage employees all had the masks dangling around their necks. There was no social distancing among HCPs in the lobby, at the snack bar, in the halls, etc. Most patients were oblivious to the 6 ft. signs, except where seats were taped to prevent use.
In the waiting area, one HCP had her mask below her nose until she saw me look at her (there were three other patients in the area.) I later saw her escorting an elderly couple by their arms who I guess were relatives given the goodbyes exchanged.
The exam room was typically quite small. At one point, there were four HCPs crowded in the room with me, and I saw a total of six in there (one to three at a time.) It seemed that the med school hasn’t modified its hands on training much. My doctor asked me to briefly remove my mask and glasses. I wasn’t comfortable doing it but complied. I hope the lab results are negative so I won’t need to return for surgery.
California Retail Assn report… For those anti-retailers on here, you will be pleased to know that some local enforcers in CA are fining sales associates personally and, in some cases, store managers, over mask compliance by customers. Some sales associates and greeters have been assaulted and there are two instances of knives being drawn when the customer was asked to wear a mask.
This thread is really nothing more than a political discussion coupled with a “haves” v “have nots” debate. Call it what it is. Mocking seems to be OK in one direction but not another.
The Ferguson predictions cited in the National Review were also cited in the NY Times.
The low percentage dead or maimed relative to total population is a big thing for you. That doesn’t negate the fact that because we are a large nation, even that “tiny fraction” is still a big number, with devastation to those affected and to their friends and families. And regardless of how we approach re-opening (I’m not in favor of lockdown and am very open to evidence based strategies for opening, nor am I terrified to leave my house), COVID is not “basically over.” That’s just absurd.
Also, the oft quoted statistic is that 80% experience mild or no symptoms. That leaves a whole lot of people more than 1% more seriously impacted in some way or form. This is not a disease to take lightly.
I’ve been most interested in hearing the differing opinions about the next steps AFTER the initial March-April SIP orders.
Most curious to me is I had thought we (general “we”) expected X number of infections (the amount under the now famous Curve) but the goal was to s-p-r-e-a-d out the rate of infection so as not to overwhelm the capacity of the health care system. SIP was buying us time to catch up and get ready.
Same number of infections expected. And it was going to be really really really bad. But the goal was preserving hospital capacity. Then, learning to live with a new endemic virus until an effective treatment or vaccine could be developed.
I might be slow, but it did take me some time to realize that there are a lot of people whose goal is as few infections as possible. They do not believe we need to accept that X number of infections will, eventually, occur.
That’s a big difference! And does not necessarily indicate different politics (IMO).
The vast majority of the other 20% do not experience symptoms even severe enough to warrant going to the hospital. We can argue about what “seriously impacted” means. I do not consider even being laid low for two or three weeks (equivalent to a bad flu) to be seriously impacted. Hospitalization? Yes, I can grant you that. I am not sure exactly of the national statistics, but in my county of Palm Beach County, hospitalizations run about 3 times the numbers of deaths, so less than 1% of infected persons if the CDC estimate of 0.26% IFR is ballpark.
There is a saying, “All politics is local.” I think the same is true for COVID and (since it’s been brought into the discussion) the risk of gun violence.
Reducing numbers to percentages of those dying to either COVID or gun violence is not a necessarily a bad exercise, but it takes away the “local,” aspect of it. It’s much easier to look at straight numbers when they aren’t personal to you. Once something becomes personal (“local”) those numbers feel quite meaningless.
I remember reading that the 80% only mildly impacted included non hospitalized patients with pneumonia. So apparently the 20% more seriously impacted runs from pneumonia requiring more aggressive treatment all the way up to death.
I had pneumonia once. I was not hospitalized, but I was very sick for 3 weeks and just moderately sick for another 3 weeks. It took months to feel completely recovered. I’d call that severely impacted even though there was never any hint of needing to be hospitalized. Being unable to work for a couple of months (ICU nurse) caused a few significant issues. YMMV.
Those who are elderly, those with medical conditions, those who really wanted to minimize getting contagious diseases this winter/spring have had a honeymoon period from the social distancing , sanitary procedures, shutdowns that have been put in place. They are coming to an end, and each of us have to decide how much sheltering is doable, desirable.
We did not know how to deal with virus. We knew that our facilities could not handle a huge onslaught of urgent medical cases that were possible and did occur in some areas. We’ve had time to review the situation.
The elderly, both with serious medical conditions have come to the conclusion, each woman independently, that isolation is not the way they want to end their lives. I think all family members are going to still be much more careful around them—masks, hand washing, wipe downs, etc, and these women will also moderate their behavior from what it was before this year’s pandemic, but They are not going to be shut ins as they were the last few months. They want to see friends and family even if it means shortening their own lives. Certainly, they will not encroach on others’ wishes to isolate, but they will attend family functions and participate with family.
I think a lot of the procedures that have come about will benefit us. Certainly the emphasis in thorough hand washing , social distancing, hands off of face, masks of sorts. Also being considerate of those who want to take stricter measures even as things loosen up. We’ll All be far more careful when visiting the elderly relatives, and more cautious about family members not feeling well.
If COVID19 or yet another germ makes it’s way into our population in the fall, (and there are predictions of a spike), there will be folks who will step back. The path has been made as to what to do to flatten the curve, reduce the risks. I think the schools, colleges , group living situations are very jumpy about how this year is going to end. At what points there will be government intervention, I don’t know. But a lot of procedures from early this year will remain in place in my life. I’d just as soon lower my risks for flus, RSVs and other contagious ailments as I get older. Hopefully,?the stores, the market for essential goods will be better prepared if we do find ourselves back where we’re were when the numbers for COVID19 were spiking. Hopefully better plans, supplies, policies put in place as lessons learned.