Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

If the antibodies tests are correct and we have a 0.16% mortality rate, then it was a huge mistake for us ever to shut down in the first place. That means the mortality rate for working age people is about 0.02%. If true, we wrecked ourselves bigly.

 

That’s a reasonable starting point for a discussion. It gets hard when we have to assert how many deaths are acceptable in the alternative; 50,000, 100,000, 250,000 or more?

I’m not making a forecast there. I’m saying we are paying a financial cost to limit death. If we dial the financial cost back, how much are we willing to dial the death count up?

Any dialing up or down of preventative measures impacts costs and health. Until we have long term solutions, we need to acknowledge, in real terms, the impacts of turning that dial.

 

It's weird how narratives change over a thread like this. So I want to reset my position. It might be fun for all of us to do this as finding g each position for each poster is impossible in a thread like this.

1. I 100% support the government actions to this point. I also support the (sooner than later) restart of areas with little impact as they have resources that are not overtaxed and can restart the right way.
2. I do not consider this to be like the flu because we have no combative measures (vaccine or immunity). Maybe someday...but right now they are miles away from each other.
3. I DO FEEL that some early numbers that were clearly apocalyptic worst case we cited here and quoted a lot early on here and in the media.
4. I do find the antibody results as good news that are not getting enough play in the media for some weird reason.
5. The entire number for our country is skewed by one enormous hotbed...but that does not make our actions in vain...in fact that may be more proof that we did the right thing.
6. I think the current POTUS is a bad human being in general, who has handled this like a child.
7. I think the live numbers are off based on CDC guidelines. But I also fully understand why they did it and trust history will correct the numbers as it does with flu numbers annually.
8. I think Birx and Fauci are American treasures.
9. I think Fox and CNN are two sides of the same coin...always sniping at each other and crafting a narrative to get eyeballs and dollars.
10. I think the current POTUS is a bad human being in general, who has handled this like a child.
11. I am a moderate conservative that supports the stimulus (welfare) actions by our government to protect its people.
12. I really....REALLY...miss hockey. #GoBolts.

I place this here to quote the next time I am falsely accused of saying this is just the flu...or defending Trump or thinking the CDC is one aided or whatever.

I do think a moderate open minded approach is

Might be fun for all of us to do this.

P.S. Yes...I know I repeated myself for #10.

 

Again, 50,000 people dead in the US in less than 4 months. That annualizes to a significantly dangerous number. But, again, the shelter in place was as much about giving hospitals a chance and not completely overwhelming our health care system.

We KNOW that we need to thoughtfully, carefully bring economic activity back on line in this country. However, it must be done intelligently and only after the resources are in place to test at a much greater rate than we are able to right now and to be able to perform at least 1/2 way decent contact tracing to isolate and quarantine hot spots.

So, no, we did not "wreck ourselves bigly". We acted, and most of us continue to act in the best interest of our nation, our friends and family, and most importantly our fragile, under prepared health care system. I rarely ever say this on an opinion board, but you are wrong.

 

That discounts the effect that shutting down had on that mortality rate.

I frankly dont think our economy is wrecked anyway.

IF these antibody numbers are even close than that can start to create a strategy for reopen. I think IF positive news is ACCURATELY portrayed by the media then American's will engage in the economy sooner than later.

There is a great read by an MIT scientist that talks about a strategy for restarting sports that would even allow fans. The list of precautions is long, but he claims it will be a safe as going to a park IF the strategy is followed perfectly.

We can't discount though, that our measures likely are keeping the mortality rate way down.

 

Well, I guess I left out one important point in my post and that is, for example, if 1 in 5 people have already been exposed to the virus, as the NY study suggests, then how much will keeping everything shut down really help? Multiply NY's death count by 5. Just over 100,000. Multiply the nationwide deaths by 10. A tragic number, no doubt, but a similar number of people die each year from cancer alone. And that's assuming every American will have direct exposure to the virus.

It's not an easy call.

 

Good news is that MOST health systems were not overwhelmed or even close...so that helps us move to a reopen quicker in those areas.

As mentioned. Tests are easy to come by in my city and the hospitals are basically empty. Areas like this have a head start. BUT likely because of what we have done.

 

I don't know if I buy it. If 1 in 5 New Yorkers had direct exposure to the virus, that's a pretty large spread already. And realistically, that would mean there were/are tons more people infected who didn't/don't even realize it. Again, being realistic, do you think all of those people have practiced social-distancing like they're supposed to or worn a mask out at all times? My point is, if the infection rates are truly that high and the asymptomatic % is truly that high, then it's reasonable to expect that spread is still occurring at a decent clip, even with social distancing restrictions in place. That would also mean the virus is even more transmittable than previously thought. So when you combine the people taking a lackadaisical attitude towards protecting themselves, along with the fact it's much more contagious than previously thought AND the fact that the spread rate is already pretty high, I think it's safe to assume that spread is still occurring at a decent pace. Perhaps slower due to restrictions, but the risk/reward factor has definitely tilted away from shutting everything down being the most beneficial thing if these antibody tests are accurate.

P.S. The U.S. have tested way more people than any other country and even after more than a month of social distancing, the new cases count continues to expand at a pretty good pace. We are seeing more new cases simply because we are testing more. But we're not really seeing that much of a slow down. It had looked like we were heading in that direction, but the last few days have proven otherwise. It's still spreading pretty fast.

 

It isn’t, but I don’t think the majority of the American public would be in favor of (your ten times number) 500,000 Covid19 deaths.

It’s more difficult because the fiscal and fatality impacts are both forecasts without the certainty anyone wants.

 

I think he means a total of 320k but your point still stands.

 

His reference was multiply nationwide deaths by ten.

As a side note - I’m not saying he is or is not ok with that number in exchange for a return to normalcy. I’m just saying to have this debate requires an honest discussion of acceptable fatalities.

They will go up as we dial down safeguards. If you want to argue for dialing down, that discussion had to include how much fatalities can be dialed up.

 

Of course, nobody is going to sign up for 500,000 deaths. That said, we've never been able to snap our fingers and stop death. I'm not sure why we think we should be able to now. Trust me, it sucks. I'd hate to lose a family member to this.

I do think the fiscal impacts are much easier to project. We are still learning very basic facts about this virus, but 20,000,000 jobless claims in 4 weeks doesn't lie. The economic devastation this will leave in its wake is going to be catastrophic and millions will suffer as a result.

 

I took his equation as 10x+10y where x=NY and y=The rest (since NY is 40% of US deaths).

 

I actually meant 500,000. He had it right. But like I said, a similar number die each year from cancer alone.

 

Shit I screwed up the equation anyways. I'll leave the math to smarter people.

Exercising and doing math is hard lol.

 

Just trying to inject some levity...

 

I kind of see where folks that bring in other deaths are coming from. Since 2.8 million die per year of all causes then even if we had 500k for of COVID then there would more than likely be a large overlap.

 

There are a lot of things to consider. First, it's not just deaths that need to be considered. Not all who recover from COVID-19 are left unscathed. Many have permanent heart or lung damage that will require life-long medical attention and likely be a cause of an early death. These numbers should be factored in as well.

In addition, we should look at comorbidity factors in places like NY/NJ and to project what the death rate may be in other areas. It may not be the simple math that (x dead/NY Pop) US population = total projected dead. For example, diabetes is a likely commodity. NY and NY both rank in in the 20s for diabetes. What happens if there's a similar outbreak in states ranked at the bottom of the list?

There's so many things we still don't know. But what we do know is efforts to flatten the curve have, for the most part, worked. And that mass testing and isolation of those that test positive is a way to mitigate the spread. Testing for antibodies helps too, and hopefully those that test positive are willing to donate plasma, as that's been one of the more effective treatments to date.

 

Dude, I admire your patience and effort here, but you’re wasting your energy. This guy will never get what you’re saying because he doesn’t want to. I’ve considered an attempt to reason with several times but deleted my posts because it wasn’t worth it. With statistics, you can be inaccurate as long as you’re consistent, the variance will balance over time. Everyone understand a that but him. Every week for what, 5 weeks now, he celebrates the weekend dip only to cry conspiracy come Tuesday when the numbers jump up again. It’s been the same since week 1 but he still can’t follow or accept the pattern. He simply doesn’t want to. Again, kudos to you for having the patience to try, but it’s never going to work.

 

Most of those are on temporary unemployment as different states have changed rules to accommodate. (ie eliminating the requirement to be searching for a job while receiving unemployment.) A great many of those jobs will comeback. And lets not forget that many of them are actually making more money now then in their real jobs. So the economic impact may not be what we would see if the job market just collapsed with no hope for a bounce back.