COVID-19 Links, facts and discussion. Politics and hyperbole welcome.

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Kinda interesting. Not mega newsworthy though interesting...




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I remember when people were afraid of being secretly tracked by rfid tags...now we voluntarily carry them in our pockets, and they can darn near tell when you accidentally(or intentionally) leave it somewhere.
 
From the article :


“In Italy, 9.5 percent of the people who have tested positive for the virus have succumbed to covid-19, according to data compiled at Johns Hopkins University. In France, the rate is 4.3 percent. But in Germany, it’s 0.4 percent.
The biggest reason for the difference, infectious disease experts say, is Germany’s work in the early days of its outbreak to track, test and contain infection clusters. That means Germany has a truer picture of the size of its outbreak than places that test only the obviously symptomatic, most seriously ill or highest-risk patients.”

The United States failed at testing early on. We are now up against inertia, and it is unclear how difficult it will be to stop.

Testing doesn’t appear to have stopped spread in Germany. They’re buried in positives. Testing the entire state of NY wouldn’t reduce the spread, it would simply show that most people who get it don’t end up in the hospital.
 
So many mixed messages who knows what to think? I know one thing, if was on my death bed, start throwing and see what sticks..

Ps. If you’ve been reading the reports of chloroquine uses in treating the virus, don’t drink fish tank cleaner that contains chloroquine phosphate because it’s 100% more deadly than the virus.. lol..

I’d run from NV so fast. A governor that bans a doctor from giving me a medication that might save my life? Sounds reasonable.
 
Very interesting article, we know uv can kill viruses ( the steri pen for example). My question is, are people more likely getting sick where it's cold because they are huddled together indoors compared to warmer areas where people may be further apart and outside? The increase in uv in the coming months is a cause for hope though!
 
"The biggest reason for the difference, infectious disease experts say, is Germany’s work in the early days of its outbreak to track, test and contain infection cluster"

I bolded the word early, because that is the crux.
Containing it early (can be argued that wasn't the case) doesn't make it more or less deadly. I understand the healthcare system can be overwhelmed at some point and that in itself can increase the number of deaths. Yet to see how that affects the overall numbers. At this point there are currently no proven widespread effective treatments for Corona. So Germany didn't do anything extraordinary to keep their citizens from dying.

As for as containment. I will argue that a country with over 34,000 confirmed cases did not do an extraordinary job of containment. They have the 5th most confirmed cases of any country in the world. In fairness they do more testing so that is somewhat expected in having more cases. I do think their mortality rate is closer to the true rate due to increased testing. But I expect it to go down more because we are only looking at confirmed cases at this point. That doesn't count that more people have it that haven't been tested and some have already recovered that had it. Those numbers will eventually get added into the formula.
 
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Testing the entire state of NY would reduce the spread. Identifying superspreaders, people that are infected, infectoious and show no symptoms, are contributing largely to the rate of community spread. Identifying these individuals and quarantining them WOULD reduce the spread. Testing is good. Having data is alwasy better than the reverse.

Testing doesn’t appear to have stopped spread in Germany. They’re buried in positives. Testing the entire state of NY wouldn’t reduce the spread, it would simply show that most people who get it don’t end up in the hospital.
 
Containing it early (can be argued that wasn't the case) doesn't make it more or less deadly. I understand the healthcare system can be overwhelmed at some point and that in itself can increase the number of deaths. Yet to see how that affects the overall numbers. At this point there are currently no proven widespread effective treatments for Corona. So Germany didn't do anything extraordinary to keep their citizens from dying.

As for as containment. I don't think you can argue that a country with over 34,000 confirmed cases did some great job of containment. They have the 5th most confirmed cases of any country in the world.


Testing early allows you to trace and contain clusters. Other countries have done it with success, and Germany did it better than the US. Countries are not monoliths, these waves happen by metro area, and so knowing the hotspots and a better representation of infection is important for planning. Looking at raw numbers for a country as a whole may not be a good signal of the situation in different cities in that country. It also allows you to take the situation seriously early on. Something we did not do at all. There's a political aspect to that - maybe some tweets that haven't aged well - but I will stay out of that realm.
 
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I don't think you can argue that a country with over 34,000 confirmed cases did some great job of containment.
There is the possibility that their definition of "confirmed" is different than ours or SK or some other country. The % of serious/critical is strangely low too. Again, I can hope their numbers are reality, but I don't know that I am looking at an Apples to Apples comparison.
 
Testing the entire state of NY would reduce the spread. Identifying superspreaders, people that are infected, infectoious and show no symptoms, are contributing largely to the rate of community spread. Identifying these individuals and quarantining them WOULD reduce the spread. Testing is good. Having data is alwasy better than the reverse.

No one has the man power to quarantine every positive in NYC, let alone the whole state, the test doesn’t tell you if you’re a “super spreader” it just tells you if you have it or not. Testing isn’t going to reduce the spread, and it doesn’t seem to have reduce the number of infected people in Germany. It only shows that most people who catch it, don’t end up in the hospital.
 
I hope this is the right place to post this

If you have older people in your family with DNR's on file, a DNR does not mean, dont treat the patient at all. I dont have any charts or anything, but I am aware that in the past that some in the health industry have mistaken a DNR as a "dont treat" order. I would think that this might be possible today if someone 80 and older came to the hospital with the virus.

Depression/Mental Health. 401';s are down, isolated, no income, maybe some are ill in the family or old and you can not see them, --loss of "control" at least to some degree.

Do your best to stay active both physically and mentality. change what you can, accept what you can not change, and have the wisdom to know the difference. Dont be your own worst enemy by driving yourself crazy because you are not in a position to change something. MANY GOOD STRONG MEN on this forum. Men who are accustomed to taking control of a situation and fixing it. Tough days for sure but they will pass and we will be back to discussing weather or not an Elk can be killed with a 270 (-:.

What have you always wanted to do but never had the time. Learn to play a musical instrument, art, sculpture, buy an old 64 1/2 mustang and restore it. (-;
 

100 people died today. I fear the next couple of weeks will be grim in terms of the death toll, as the number of fatalities rises with the spike in cases we are seeing right now.
Over 7,000 people die per day in America. The Wuhan Virus deaths are a drop in the bucket. The plus is I would guess that drunk driving deaths have dropped due to bars being closed.
 
Over 7,000 people die per day in America. The Wuhan Virus deaths are a drop in the bucket. The plus is I would guess that drunk driving deaths have dropped due to bars being closed.
It's not about deaths today, it is the looming effect of exponential growth that is the issue. And remember there is about a 21 day lag between confirmed cases and deaths. So you need to compare 21 day ago infections and today's death and then extrapolate April 15th deaths from todays confirmed cases and then build in some exponential growth from there and the numbers become shocking in a hurry. But this is all speculative as things like death rate and infectivity are numbers that are largely determined with post-outbreak hindsight not daily number tracking. This may be like H1N1 or it may be like the spanish flu of 1918-1920 or somewhere in between and frankly no one can tell you for certainty today.
 
(Sorta scared to dip my toes into shark filled commenting waters)

Skimming thru the last 6 pages, I don’t recall any conversation when comparing death rates of Influenza A or B versus Covid-19: A major difference has to include immunization rates that reduce infection or morbidity of the “flu” versus and viable antivirals (Tamiflu) whereas there is no herd or individual resistance or well known medications (yet) to fight the new virus.

Flu shots save multitudes of lives. Hopefully there will be a viable vaccine for Covid-19.

The last 6 pages are more opinion, false comparisons and misapplied armchair stats using fuzzy numbers than useful information. Garbage in, Garbage out.

The flu comparisons aren’t very revealing for a number of reasons, the first being exactly what you’ve hit upon. We have significant herd immunity to lots of flu strains, and the system is pretty good at predicting the major strains that will circulate in a season and pumping out vaccines. Humans as a species have a long history of experience with influenzas. We typically see more illness and mortality from strains that we don’t have immunity in the population for- similar to the current situation, but overall pretty rare with influenza viruses. Other than flu shots, we do virtually nothing to combat “flu”. No social distancing, sick kids and people still go to school and work...we are very bad at minimizing flu transmission, but it isn’t catastrophic because we generally are immunologically prepared to handle it.

However, during any given flu season, there are multiple strains circulating of both Influenza A and Influenza B, causing illness and killing people. It isn’t a straight comparison to compare “flu” to coronavirus. Which flu are we talking about, because some have been significantly more deadly than others (see 1918 Spanish Flu). But the point is when a single flu virus is highly transmissible AND causing significant morbidity in people, epidemiologists pay much closer attention- again, like the current situation.

No one has the man power to quarantine every positive in NYC, let alone the whole state, the test doesn’t tell you if you’re a “super spreader” it just tells you if you have it or not. Testing isn’t going to reduce the spread, and it doesn’t seem to have reduce the number of infected people in Germany. It only shows that most people who catch it, don’t end up in the hospital.

If you have it, you are spreading it. If you have it and are otherwise asymptomatic so don’t know you have it, you are way more likely to be out running around as usual rather than isolating yourself. Thus “super spreader”. Targeting positives for isolation reduces the opportunities for transmission. Extremely simple concept, and the foundation of epidemiology.
 
Testing early allows you to trace and contain clusters. Other countries have done it with success, and Germany did it better than the US. Countries are not monoliths, these waves happen by metro area, and so knowing the hotspots and a better representation of infection is important for planning. Looking at raw numbers for a country as a whole may not be a good signal of the situation in different cities in that country. It also allows you to take the situation seriously early on. Something we did not do at all. There's a political aspect to that - maybe some tweets that haven't aged well - but I will stay out of that realm.

Germany and the US ramped up testing at almost the exact same time. On March 10 Germany had 1565 positive cases. March 24 Germany had 32,991



On March 10 the US had 994 cases. March 24 US had 54,856


I'm not saying Germany isn't doing a better job because I think they probably are. But to act like Germany was miles ahead of this thing and the US was miles behind is simply FALSE.
 
Testing early allows you to trace and contain clusters. Other countries have done it with success, and Germany did it better than the US. Countries are not monoliths, these waves happen by metro area, and so knowing the hotspots and a better representation of infection is important for planning. Looking at raw numbers for a country as a whole may not be a good signal of the situation in different cities in that country. It also allows you to take the situation seriously early on. Something we did not do at all. There's a political aspect to that - maybe some tweets that haven't aged well - but I will stay out of that realm.
Some tweets didn’t age well. Half of the cases are in New York.

 
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