Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Without looking to see who exactly you have in mind, dollars to doorknobs that they are many of the same people who early on called this not worse than the flu or a common cold, it was a hoax etc. that demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding and ideology severely clouding rational thinking.

Thing is, these folks were wrong then and they are wrong now, for the same underlying reasons.

 

Same folks are going to point to the final numbers and say they didn't justify the steps taken to stifle the economy, without acknowledging the numbers would be higher without taking those preventative steps.

 

I took his post as a troll swipe.
Don't think there is anyway to win an argument on what's making things better or worse.

Lets not forget the "Projections" went from 2 million dead(worst case), to 50k, then 100-250k, now swinging down..

About as accurate at predicting intensity and land fall of a tropical system 7 days out.

 

Yup. And that idea needs to be pushed back against hard. Impossible not to anticipate/predict that it will happen given how folks bought into the lies first. I remember early into this, there were already memes circulating about this very idea.

 

There are some arguments that say a stay at home (target) for the most at risk would have been better overall.

"Knut Wittkowski, previously the longtime head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at the Rockefeller University in New York City, said in an interview with the Press and the Public Project that the coronavirus could be “exterminated” if we permitted most people to lead normal lives and sheltered the most vulnerable parts of society until the danger had passed.

“[W]hat people are trying to do is flatten the curve. I don’t really know why. But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time. And I don’t see a good reason for a respiratory disease to stay in the population longer than necessary,” he said.

“With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children. So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated,” he added."
Epidemiologist: Coronavirus could be ‘exterminated’ if lockdowns were lifted | The College Fix

I've worked with a few infectious Disease specialists who have echoed this .

 

Because I’m a numbers nerd...

that model projecting 60k deaths is likely projecting even less in their last run. I read their methodology, they average their last three or four runs, which means the big drop came because either a low number fell off or a low number came on to the set. The latter is much more likely, so expect another drop from it in its next change, unless the published death and infection numbers get worse. My guess is that unless Some place like Houston or Chicago or LA becomes a hot spot, we may already be at the peak nationally. We will se over the next few days though.

 

Help me out here. The verse in question literally says "hav(e) compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling." The same guy with that signature calls people bomb throwers and haters. The act of returning evil, being discourteous, and reviling others is EXACTLY what he is doing.

You claim to reconcile this? Consider that if people are NOT bomb throwers and haters then he is lying AND initiating evil and the reviling of others. On the other hand, if it is truthful that others are bomb throwers and haters, is he not directly violating the scripture by being discourteous and reviling them?

More significantly, you can disagree on FACTS but he is attacking people and their motivations personally. He has no idea who these people are and is not even attacking their positions - just them personally. The attack is just generic: "you hate trump" or "You are a hater." This in light of the fact that there are many people on here who have stated exactly why they disapprove of how Trump has handled this AND they are entitled to that opinion without being called a hater.

No, Tilly, there is no reconciling personally attacking people you do not know (and have only read a few posts from) as haters, bomb throwers etc (he has used many other generalizations to attack) as he has done and then citing scripture about being courteous, having compassion and not returning evil, IMHO. All the above goes just as well for people who attack all right wing people with damning generations (ie, H Clinton "deplorable").

 

Didn’t that 2 million number come with a big ass asterisk?

 

The issue with this is two-fold. First, unlike previous novel respiratory diseases, the percentage that require hospitalization for COVID-19 is high, and long. It often takes weeks on a respirator before someone can be released from the hospital. It would be highly likely that, if only the most vulnerable were isolated, at the infection rates for COVID-19, we'd run out of ICU hospital beds. This would create a panic, and people would stay home regardless.

Remember, it's not just Coronavirus patients that need ICU beds. They are also needed for things like victims of traffic accidents. Since the nation-wide self isolation, the number traffic accidents has been cut in half. This is one of the reasons why hospitals have been able to keep up with COVID-19 patient demands for the most part. ICU beds that world under more normal conditions be filled by non-COVID-19 patients are left open because we have drastically changed our habits.

The second issue is how would we determine who is most at risk, and keep them isolated, when the rest of the world is operating under normal conditions. Those over 65 living in assisted facilities are easy enough to isolate, but what about those like me with asthma? I have two, school-aged kids that haven't left the house except to take the dog on a walk with the family for three weeks. If they were in school, the chances of them contracting the disease would be high. Then, what am I supposed to do? Self isolate from my kids?

It's bad enough my wife works in food manufacturing and is considered a critical worker. At least she works with all adults, that has hand washing stations all over the plant, and now with additional sanitizer stations. Everyone understands that if one person is diagnosed with COVID-19, the plant shuts down for at least a week, so everyone is being extra careful, not only at work, but at home. Again, if life went on for those who don't have to worry so much about COVID-19, it makes life extremely difficult for those who have co-morbidity issues and live with those who don't.

Flattening the curve is being done to ensure demand for hospital beds will not outstrip supply. In the long term, it will save lives, and make it easier for everyone with co-morbidity to better avoid and contract the virus. And if they do, at least there will be hopefully available ICU beds and needed equipment to give them a fighting chance.

 

Not sure if I am the first poster here to officially test positive, but here was my up close and personal story with C-19:

• Started with a dry cough last Friday.
  
• Sunday got a fever. Went to the best infectious disease / pulmonary hospital in South Florida (one of their walk in clinics), which was also offering tests with 24-48 hour turn around times versus government testing stations that take 5-7 days.
  
• Went back Monday with shortness of breath. They checked me into the ER because my resting heart rate was 140 (plus a fever and the dry cough). Stayed for 6 hours. They "accelerated" my test from Sunday and confirmed I was positive.
  
• Did all sorts of blood tests, got a chest X-ray that showed (won’t even pretend to use the medical lingo) I have pneumonia or a opacity in the lung bases that probably represents infiltrate versus atelectasis.
• All other blood work and scans turned out completely normal.
• Feel 1,000x times better since Monday. No more fever. Resting Heart Rate is back in the 70 range.

Before last Friday, I had not left my house for three weeks except for Whole Foods, Publix and CVS.

Hope and truly believe the worst is behind for me. The doctors and nurses advice for me (didn't understand how I got it).

WASH YOUR HANDS. Gloves / masks only go so far. Wash your hands 10x per day. It is better than the alternative.

p.s. will be under official self-quarantine from the family so plenty of time to annoy you guys from the guest bed-room for next 10 days .

Stay safe!

 

I'm no expert but even I understand why you flatten the curve. You prevent hospital over-crowding and lack of supplies, as we are witnessing in some places. I do get the argument of only the most at risk staying home, thought I'm not sure the logistics of something like that.

 

Agreed. And a flattened curve results in fewer collateral casualties that may occur as a result of a overburdened healthcare system.

This is why the UK switched tactics so late.

 

Dang. Glad you are feeling better & hope it stays that way. It's pretty chilling that you got it given your vigilance. going to wash my hands

 

Thanks for sharing, glad you're feeling well now.

How did you treat it?

 

His argument has a sound basis to an extent, but isolating only the high risk but letting it flourish otherwise to achieve herd immunity (which by the way is not actually a certainty--or at least more complicated since we don't know how long any antibody effects would last) would not work under the conditions we have been operating under.

We were not prepared because we didn't have a good system in place to address this in similar ways that other countries which have fared much better have done, some even without the extremes we've engaged in (e.g. see Taiwan).

The first thing we needed to do was have a testing system up and running, and to be able to scale it quickly. This was an absolute failure for many reasons, though not all of it on our end.

We would have needed an organized (and extreme) isolation of high risk persons across the country from day one--actually even before the first case reached our shores--regardless of where they lived in the US.

We would have needed to test and 14-day quarantine every single person coming into the country and we would need to social distance and close down events that put people in large crowds--again across the board, no piecemeal.

There would still be some economic slowdown and across the board social distancing etc. but perhaps not the extreme shutdown. And while it's true bending the curve prolongs the fight, which we knew already, not doing so would have been irresponsible because we weren't properly prepared in being proactive in the extreme, across the board, beyond what the CDC already does. Again, not piecemeal.

This is more of a political issue in the sense that whatever pandemic response system we have needs to be much more robust and immediate and applicable everywhere in the US. And it needs to be supported by political leaders. It's also societal, our attitudes and ignorance on public health are appalling and folks need to better understand why pandemics are so dangerous and alarming and why most epidemiologists who've weighed in didn't argue against the extreme shut down.

 

LOL, yeah fauci absolutely put himself in a no lose situation.

 

Glad to hear you're doing better. Annoy away! You're personal experience will benefit these discussions.

 

Dang, glad you are feeling better?
Are you generally in good health? You seemed to have fared better than a lot of people.

 

Blasphemous!!

 

At 34, which doesn't make me that young, they were more worried about my immune system overreacting and causing negative consequences. A basic IV and OTC drugs were all I needed while they monitored me.

Different for everyone, which is why this is so scary.