Excargodog

Many biological processes START OUT logarithmic. Do you think ANY of them CONTINUE logarithmic?


https://ibb.

742Dash

Here are some facts for you.

My son is a physician in a major metropolitan area located in a state with less than 100 cases. Nevertheless, in his hospital they have patients in the ICU on ventilators who are symptomatic but as of last week were not allowed to be tested because they had no known contact with anyone who tested positive.

If you think that your numbers are accurate you really need to get your information from a broader range of sources.

And I add another fact. Northern Italy has more ICU beds and more ventilators per population unit than the United States does.

Excargodog

Here are some facts for you:

NONE of the testing numbers (the epidemiological denominator data) are accurate. THEY NEVER ARE, because you ALWAYS miss asymptomatic cases, especially in the US where anti-vaxxers want nothing to do with epidemiologists sticking them with needles. But you SELDOM miss the people who actually DIE of a disease, because those people are a whole lot more conspicuous. So yes, you miss a lot of asymptomatic cases while catching almost all of those that are serious and/or lethal, which causes you to OVERSTATE THE LETHALITY of the illness you are studying. Which has certainly been the case with coronavirus.

Initial reports gave this illness a lethality (is, case-fatality rate) very similar to that of SARS. But with more comprehensive testing - that is detecting more of that asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic denominator data that we were not testing - that estimate has FALLEN drastically. We now know that it is no worse - in the general US Population, NOT IN A POPULATION OF geriatric nursing home cases with multiple preexisting conditions in Kirkland Washington - than 2%, probably less than 1.5%, and trending towards about 0.4%. And yes, 0.4% of 330 million people is still a lot of people, although like all other biological organisms coronavirus is unlikely to continue logarithmic growth because NONE IF THEN DO. If they did, dandelions might well be the only plant on Earth. The likelihood of every American citizen getting coronavirus very closely approximates every lawn becoming nothing but dandelions - not impossible, but vanishingly small. Just like coronaviruses more lethal cousin, SARS virus eventually died out without infecting us all, so will coronavirus.

Nobody is saying coronavirus can’t kill people, but it’s certainly no extinction event for the world population. The sky is NOT falling.

If you don’t believe me, ask your son.


Current case-fatality rate data:

https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19...atality-rates/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...tes-worldwide/

742Dash

Are you aware of what is happening in Northern Italy? And if so, do you consider that to be an acceptable state of affairs in the major population centers of the United States?

Excargodog

Absolutely

An acceptable state of affairs? What kind of an idiotic statement is that? It is what it is. Reality is reality, independent of what you or I or anyone else WISH it would be.

What is going on in Italy has little if anything to do with what you or I or anyone else find ‘acceptable.’ Italy is a country with a population with a median age of eight years older than the US, and a population density five times greater than that of the US. Conditions for prompt propagation of the virus are far better than in the US and the people who will be infected are in an age group that will do far worse than in the US, with far higher rates of smoking induced COPD, cardiovascular disease, and other comorbidities that set them up for bad outcomes - even apart from the age differential. They are a target rich environment. and yep, they are getting hammered.

Do I LIKE that? Of course not, it’s a stupid question. Do I find that ACCEPTABLE? An equally stupid question. I have no control over that - and neither do you.

As for the major population centers of the US, they too have certain demographics of population density and median age that might either promote or retard infection with the virus, the result of millions of historical decisions that we won’t be able to do much about at this time. They are stuck with the demographics they have now and the resource decisions they have made over centuries. They can, to some degree, mitigate risk or at least the rate of infection by social distancing and shutting down mass transit, etc, but if this really does take off here like it has in Italy (unlikely due to the different population age but possible) the limiting factor won’t be ventilators but medical personnel competent to manage patients on ventilators.

None of which changes the reality that this is an epidemic like many that have happened before, and while there is going to be pain this is not an apocalypse. Society is going to get through this.

2StgTurbine

That's correct. But for the same reasons, the seasonal flu is likely more survival than reported. That still means COVID-19 is likely still more deadly than the flu. But since the methods for getting these statistics aren't consistent, they can't be compared. Maybe the reason experts aren't paying attention to the stats you keep posting is because they aren't important.

And again, you are missing the real point. The survival rate of COVID-19 is dependent on a high level of medical attention. There is not enough capacity in the medical system to treat everyone to the degree required for COVID-19. Once the medical system gets overloaded, massive amounts of deaths can occur.

I will ask you this again, do you really think the medical experts, government officials, and major businesses haven't seen the same data you have?

rickair7777

Apples to oranges.

Just like the HIV situation in Africa is vastly different than here in the US.

OBVIOUSLY we need to all be taking precautions. But we don't need to all be on lockdown... if you take the precautions, which would include avoiding SOME work situations and most or all social gatherings.

Excargodog

Actually, no. The survival rate is QUITE HIGH, higher than for SARS or Ebola. 80+% of people who have it don’t require ANY medical personnel to be involved with their care or anything much else besides Tylenol.. This is not the plague or even as bad as a cholera epidemic.
But I will agree that once the medical system gets overloaded, deaths will go up - which is what the social distancing thing is about. But the difficulty isn’t respirators, or at least they aren’t the MOST limiting thing, it’s qualified medical personnel. Less than 15% of doctors at most hospitals are credentialed to provide ventilator care and doctors of any kind are in relatively short supply since we as a society forgot to lead-turn the retirement of the medical baby boomers.
Medical personnel are a ‘long lead time item’ as we used to say at the Air Logistics Center. If you want a new doctor you had to start four years ago - even for just an intern, and eight or more years ago for a pulmonologist. It’s a little late to worry about that now.

And basically, any 24/7 position requires (under normal circumstances) five personnel. What happened in Wuhan (and is happening in Italy) is that the relatively few ICU personnel that hospitals have were pushed too hard, got too fatigued, let their own precautions down, and caught the virus themselves. Worse yet, they got a relatively HUGE inoculum which made their cases far more deadly than would have otherwise happened if they had acquired their disease from a small inoculum in the community rather than massive exposure to the virus being shed by the very sickest patients.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/corona...-happens-next/

https://khn.org/news/surging-health-...virus-spreads/

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/...k-front-lines/

And I will ask you again, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THAT MAKE?

I’ve done nothing but provide facts - facts which you have never refuted. What does that have to do with what I do or do not think that medical experts, government officials, and major businesses have or have not seen? Quit with the straw men arguments about issues I haven’t made. If you believe I’m factually in error, refute the facts.

The sky is NOT falling. This is NOT an extinction level event.

2StgTurbine

I agree with all of this. The survival rate is high, but 20% (that value changes depending on who/when you talk to someone though) WILL require medical attention. That's the problem. The experts think that the percentage of people that will require medical attention will overload the system.

Correct. It's not the facts that I am questioning, just your conclusion. Your conclusion is vastly different than the actual experts.

Excargodog

what conclusion are you questioning:
1. The sky is not falling
2. This is not an extinction level event.