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Coronavirus could kill 81,000 in U.S., subside in June - Washington University analysis


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1 minute ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

The other day, the WHO spokeswoman was going on about whether the U.S. was going to be the next epicenter for the CV outbreaks in the world.  And after initially saying it could be, she later came back and equivocated, saying, well, the U.S. has the best medical researchers, the best technology, etc etc...

 

The one thing she didn't say was... the U.S. has the best national leadership to bring all those other things to bear on the crisis.

 

To be fair, the US has everything in the universe, the stupidest of the stupid and the most genius of geniuses, and a lot in between. But their greats are all time greats, think Bobby Fisher.

 

They really have some excellent doctors, researchers and technology. But from what the hospital people are saying, the basics have been neglected, some hospitals even closed. 

 

But, much ado about nothing, in the end Coronapocalypse will be more of a media event, we'll live to tell the tale, provided we're not over 80. Exceptions not withstanding.

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Well, you forget the bulk of those dead are over 81 and would have died anyway soon.

 

The second point is that between 12000 and 60000 die of the flu each year in the US since 2010.

 

So I'd say you take away the media hysteria and you have a fairly mundane event.

 

Though, yes governments did fail right across the world and this could certainly have been prevented. No question of that.

 

 

Edited by Logosone
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1 hour ago, rgraham said:

With 350 million of us that makes it 0.04 percent if 162,000 die. I thought the death rate was expected to be much higher.

You calculate the death rate from the amount of people who are infected, NOT from the total population.

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1 hour ago, cmarshall said:

China, S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore stopped the spread of the virus by widespread testing, compulsory isolation of positives, and contact tracing on a large scale.  The US has taken none of these steps and is not going to take them.  Therefore, the US infection and death rates will greatly exceed those of the smart countries.

China went for clinical diagnosis on 15th February as testing is too slow, eats money and resources and is generally another reason to pack bodies (live ones) in a room.

 

I'm surprised all the advocates of testing don't realise this.

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2 minutes ago, joecoolfrog said:

So if you encountered a group of visibly contagious people , lets say lepers with open weeping sores.

Would you ;

A) Buy some beer and Pizza , chew the fat with them , have a party.

B) Get the hell out of there !

Note that B) would constitute social distancing.

That's very funny, but leprosy is a bacterial infection, not a viral infection. It would actually require extensive contact to transmit to another person.

 

However that's what makes Covid19 different, it transmits at lightning speed, particularly since, unlike with leprosy, 50% of those who are infected with Covid19 show no symptoms at all. 

 

So getting back to Covid19, whilst social distancing is the instinct, it would make no sense since A) it's spread so much already that it achieves little to nothing and B) if you get it you're actually immune and will most likely survive.

 

 

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1 minute ago, amykat said:

Well that is why the current death rates in various places are usually quoted as a range and not a specific number. 

Is the ten or twenty times multiple suggested by Sir Patrick Vallance not applicable in the US?

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3 hours ago, Logosone said:

No it doesn't. Travel restrictions only work at the start of a pandemic, not when the virus has already spread.

 

Precisely because there has been massive community spread going on for some time in the US is social distancing effectively useless now:

 

Cordoning off an entire city, Wuhan, bought the rest of China a grand total of 3 days:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/25/science.abb4218

 

So then this article's conclusion is that massive testing and other local health care responses were what was important after the early stages and not travel control? So they were saying the massive travel restrictions China put in place after the initial spread were useless? I was slogging through it, but the jargonized technical language, graphs and formulae were giving me a bit of a headache, and the author was writing for his peers rather than for a layman like me.

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55 minutes ago, Traubert said:

China went for clinical diagnosis on 15th February as testing is too slow, eats money and resources and is generally another reason to pack bodies (live ones) in a room.

 

I'm surprised all the advocates of testing don't realise this.

I am sceptical about wholesale testing once a pandemic has a grip.

However it is the only way to amass reliable data .

Ergo Thailand's daily case updates are useless and pointless.

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14 minutes ago, vermin on arrival said:

So then this article's conclusion is that massive testing and other local health care responses were what was important after the early stages and not travel control? So they were saying the massive travel restrictions China put in place after the initial spread were useless? I was slogging through it, but the jargonized technical language, graphs and formulae were giving me a bit of a headache, and the author was writing for his peers rather than for a layman like me.

The cordoning off of Wuhan gave the other Chinese cities 3 days.

 

They said that at the start travel restrictions were useful, but thereafter not so much (because the virus had spread already presumably).

 

They also said that an alternative explanation for the success of containment in China could be increased testing, identifying and isolating carriers.

 

They further said that they found it difficult to determine which outcome resulted from what measure after the initial outbreak and that further work needed to be done.

 

So this would indicate that there is little hard data to support the social distancing policy works for anything more than a very minor delay in transmission. 

 

In addition that was in relation to serious travel restrictions in China, not the kind of 'social distancing' that is done in the West.

 

If someone had told me "The government has come up with a great strategy to stop the virus: We do nothing! Yes, we just stay at home and do nothing." I would not have believed it. Neither would I have believed that people would follow such a "policy".

 

It seems obvious that Mike Ryan's suggestion from the WHO, to test, isolate and identify carriers, ie to bring the fight to the virus is the way to end the pandemic. But looks like most countries are not able to do that. So herd immunity it is. Either way, we will all be fine. This period of mass insanity, like the craze for Take That, will come to an end.

Edited by Logosone
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So does this mean Chinese hospitals are better than American hospitals?

 

I mean it's just that China was surprised, ambushed. Whereas the US had a few months to learn the lay of the land.

 

More money too.

 

So how come China has less cases?

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3 hours ago, Logosone said:

That's just the point, there is no study which proves social distancing is effective.

 

You're right, travel restriction is not exactly the same as the social distancing we're forced to endure, but unless you have a better study, that's the best there is.

 

I don't have to prove social distancing is not effective. Social distancing extremists have to prove that it is.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372334/

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10 hours ago, Logosone said:

Same with Angela Merkel, nobody did anything to prepare.

Nations that were impacted by SARS were more wary than others.  For instance, South Korea had a plan that included reacting quickly to a previously unknown and potentially fatal respiratory disease.  SK was "unlucky" in that a low number of infected individuals returning to SK attended large gatherings and became or created super spreaders.

 

It's now clear that exaggeration seems to be your strong suit and you favor big fat paint brushes.

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17 hours ago, cmarshall said:

China, S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore stopped the spread of the virus by widespread testing, compulsory isolation of positives, and contact tracing on a large scale.  The US has taken none of these steps and is not going to take them.  Therefore, the US infection and death rates will greatly exceed those of the smart countries.

 

True that. But in this day and age referring to the US as a smart country might be a bit of a stretch. Certainly widespread testing is not taking place yet. A spectacularly slow start on the part of the Feds, who politicized the issue until it was too late, is largely the cause for that late start. Then you have to add in the extraordinary lack of discipling of American society. Gorging on 30 years of reality TV has not made the people stronger! Bill Maher made a reference to the US as being a nation full of people who like to sit on 1,000 pillows. I think that summarizes it. A very soft culture, and very prone to a disease like this one.

 

Having said all that, I do not buy into the more extreme guess work, projections, or alarmist scenarios out there. I do believe it is going to get bad. But, I think it may peak out at 500,000 to one million cases, and 10,000 to 25,000 fatalities, in America. No doubt the US will be the world leader they claim to be. Just not for the right reasons. I hope my guesses are right, and it does not go beyond that. Regardless, the ramifications will be felt for years to come. 

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