Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Story:

UF students exposed to coronavirus at pro-Israel conference | News | alligator.org

 

Since the US really hasn't had large scale testing I will bet there will be a big jump. Ho a unction of more getting it as much as a function if you aren't or can't look for it you can't count it. Since mild case (something like 80% of the cases) are very mild the mortality rates will be skewed higher than with the flu. Even a "mild" case of the flu makes you pretty miserable and people get tested and counted. A mild COVID19 is less likely to get tested and be counted.
Do we really need to test everyone who has a sniffle... I think not it would just wreck the infrastructure. test the moderately sick and the those at highest risk. If you're sick stay home.

 

People with “sniffles” should obviously not clog up hospitals, that’s the type of madness that would clog up the healthcare system and lead to more death.

But at the same time, if you want to stop the spread the people with sniffles kind of need to know one way or the other. There just needs to be a fast/efficient test, which is what South Korea has. It isn’t reasonable to expect people with minimal symptoms to quarantine if they dont even know they have the virus. If they confirm positive then it is reasonable to expect self-quarantine, or even mandatory quarantine if it gets really bad.

 

Completely agree on all points.

Amazing thing is within a week of realizing this was an issue the virus had already been sequenced, quality rapid test kits take time to develop and can have high 10% false neg rates (for various reasons). Current rapid Flu test kits are like 90% accurate with a 10% false neg rate. (mostly because they test for the antigen and your body needs time to make that).
PCR testing is way more accurate but takes time to do (hence test set for confirmation results pending).

 

This entire drama is absolutely ridiculous. Who cares if you get it? At what point do people realize that whether it's a pandemic or a flu that crosses the US it isnt going to kill you unless you are high risk which is the exact same result from flu or most viruses and the actual effects are so minimal that it makes no difference. Nobody is crawling on the floors with it...
If you have it then I am just fine with being near you because the odds are that hundreds and hundreds have already been near you that have it.

 

This is trending 5x-20x more deadly than the annual flu AND there is no vaccine.

The only true thing in your statement is that kids have far less to worry about. Flu can sometimes hit children. This seemingly doesn’t.

 

Flu numbers broken down by age.

Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in the United States — 2018–2019 influenza season | CDC

Covid19 numbers broken down by age.

Coronavirus Age, Sex, Demographics (COVID-19) - Worldometer

They don't use the same age breakdowns, but the numbers for covid19 are so much higher it doesn't really matter.

Covid19 0-9 years no fatalities, flu 0-4 years is 0.0073% fatality rate, 5-17 years is 0.0028%.
Covid19 10-39 years is 0.2%, flu ranges from 0.0028-0.02% for 5-49 years.
Covid19 40-49 is 0.4%, flu is 0.02% for 18-49.
Covid19 50-59 is 1.3%, flu is 0.06% for 50-64.
Covid19 60-69 is 3.6%, flu ranges from 0.06-0.83% for 50-65+
Covid19 is 8% for 70-79 and 14.8% for 80+, flu tops out at 0.83% for 65+

 

Unfortunately America has a ton of obese people which does put you in the "high risk" category. Time will tell but I believe your position of "nothing to worry about" will prove very misguided in the end. For humanity's sake I really really hope you are correct.

 

I dont know if this is true but I believe the young are getting it at the same rate as the old. They sneeze once and then are fine and they keep shedding the virus to their grandparents. Who get sick and 3 percent of them die.

 

Would it be wrong of me to say if it takes out the morbidly obese, how is that a problem.

 

Tis true. One of my personal concerns right now. I also have to go for surgery this Friday, which makes me worried even more.

We also have a growing elderly baby boomer population that is also at higher risk.

 

Yes. The answer to your problem question should be obvious.

 

Wake up dude. You're reasoning is pretty bad. It doesn't matter that it might not kill young healthy people, the nature of a freaking pandemic and the ease at which this virus can live outside of a body and spread means that people will die unnecessarily because it spread through healthy populations and into vulnerable ones.

 

Just because the flu will kill 30k people why would we just let this new virus spread and take the death count up 30k more to 60k? Makes no sense. It’s like saying why wear a seatbelt since cancer kills people too?

 

Beastly story from the Daily Beast:

Most Americans Will Likely Be Exposed to Coronavirus, Republicans Told

 

Is this Alan Grayson's dream scenario?

 

Just to make sure I've got the narrative straight.. Trump is butchering the response to Covid-19, right? Angela Merkel tells Germans that 70% of them will get Covid-19. Germany is supposed to have a better healthcare system than ours. Yet, here you have their leader telling them it's inevitable 70% of the population will contract the virus. I would like to know if folks here think this is an appropriate message? And if true, why should Trump get any blame when countries that have superior health systems to ours are already tapping out and saying we can't do anything to stop it?

 

I've never been much of a Megan McArdle fan, but she nails it here.

When a danger is growing exponentially, everything looks fine until it doesn’t
By
Megan McArdle
Columnist
March 10, 2020 at 3:33 p.m. PDT

There’s an old brain teaser that goes like this: You have a pond of a certain size, and upon that pond, a single lilypad. This particular species of lily pad reproduces once a day, so that on day two, you have two lily pads. On day three, you have four, and so on.

Now the teaser. “If it takes the lily pads 48 days to cover the pond completely, how long will it take for the pond to be covered halfway?”

The answer is 47 days. Moreover, at day 40, you’ll barely know the lily pads are there.

That grim math explains why so many people — including me — are worried about the novel coronavirus, which causes a disease known as covid-19. And why so many other people think we are panicking over nothing.

 

Reality and trying to amplify a situation that doesn't require it are the points you should look at. This hits everyone but it only affects those with weakened immunes systems to the point of hospitalization and that exemplifies why 80 year old people tend to die at greater rates. At the same time 80 year old's also do not die when getting it. You think its trending at a greater rate but why can you not get the picture of most people are not going to report something that hasn't minimal negative effects? Flu is clearly much "louder" if relating to the actual effects of vomiting, muscle aches, headaches, dehydration and on and on and most people will go to the doctor thus making it reportable. This is not showing anything close to that so your "trending" exaggeration is just that, an exaggerated model that has no base of facts.

 

There is now an active case at Shands, according to a radio report this morning.