The Story of The Doctor Who Ordered America's First Covid-19 Lockdown (mercurynews.com) 164
Long-time Slashdot reader bsharma shared the story of doctor/public health officer who "went first," ordering America's very first coronavirus lockdown in six counties on March 16th after the identification of only the 7th known case of Covid-19 in the United States.
The Bay Area Newsgroup reports that on January 31st, Cody's cellphone rang at 6:49 a.m. "You've got your first positive," the voice said. Right then, Cody — Santa Clara County's Public Health Officer since 2013 — was positive that even by Silicon Valley standards, life as we know it here was about to change....
Back in the early 2000s, with the country on edge after 9/11, Cody, Karen Smith and Marty Fenstersheib led the health department's effort to build Santa Clara County's model for a massive, coordinated emergency response to a bioterrorism attack or pandemic that included social distancing, shutting schools and the most extreme, mandating that people stay home. It's the one they would turn to this month to slow the untraceable path of this new disease known as COVID-19. "None of us really believed we would do it," Smith, 63, said in a recent interview. "I was slightly terrified to think we were putting in place stay-at-home orders, tools that we think work but don't really know...."
Through the years, Cody has learned that public health officers never have all the information they need and are always operating with uncertainty. But the stakes are so much higher now. The second confirmed case of coronavirus in the county came 48 hours after the first; both were travelers from China. But the criteria for sending swabs for testing to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was so stringent and the bottleneck for test results so long, that the county was left hamstrung trying to figure out how big of a problem it really had. Not until nearly a month later, on Feb. 28, two days after the county was finally given authorization to use its own lab and judgment for testing, was the third "positive" confirmed.
It would be a "sentinel case" — a turning point for the virus' spread across the Bay Area — a woman in her 60s with other health conditions. Unlike the first two, this was a clear case of "community transmission," meaning the woman had become infected somewhere in our community, with no clear connection to a traveler. "In very short order," Cody said, "it became apparent we needed to start scaling up fast...." By March 9, the sick woman in her 60s — the sentinel case — had died, and 43 cases had been confirmed, the highest of any county in California. Santa Clara County would now be branded across the country as a coronavirus "hot zone...."
"It was clear to me already how quickly it was moving, and that's what gave me a sense of urgency," Cody said. "We just needed to embrace the risk and do it."
"I recognize that this is unprecedented," Cody said in announcing the lockdown. "But we must come together to do this and we know we need a regional response... We must all do our part to slow the spread of COVID-19."
A professor of epidemiology at the University of California San Francisco has told the same newspaper "That's going to turn out to be — if all goes well and I'm reading the tea leaves right — one of the major public health triumphs of modern times." That article reports that while California had roughly the same number of cases as New York in the first week of March, "by the end of the month, New York had 75,795 cases while California had a tenth of that — 7,482."
An infectious disease doctor (and associate executive director with Permanente Medical Group) also told Politico Tuesday that at Kaiser Permanente hospitals across Northern California, they're "seeing a leveling off of Covid-19 cases in our hospitals." And one writer even quoted an emergency room doctor at the UCSF hospital who said last weekend they'd seen less than half the normal number of emergency room patients, and "My colleagues at Stanford, as well as at other facilities in San Francisco report much of the same conditions in their hospitals...
"It seems very likely, that the 'shelter in place' policy has had a significant, positive effect on containing the spread of COVID-19 in the Bay Area."
The Bay Area Newsgroup reports that on January 31st, Cody's cellphone rang at 6:49 a.m. "You've got your first positive," the voice said. Right then, Cody — Santa Clara County's Public Health Officer since 2013 — was positive that even by Silicon Valley standards, life as we know it here was about to change....
Back in the early 2000s, with the country on edge after 9/11, Cody, Karen Smith and Marty Fenstersheib led the health department's effort to build Santa Clara County's model for a massive, coordinated emergency response to a bioterrorism attack or pandemic that included social distancing, shutting schools and the most extreme, mandating that people stay home. It's the one they would turn to this month to slow the untraceable path of this new disease known as COVID-19. "None of us really believed we would do it," Smith, 63, said in a recent interview. "I was slightly terrified to think we were putting in place stay-at-home orders, tools that we think work but don't really know...."
Through the years, Cody has learned that public health officers never have all the information they need and are always operating with uncertainty. But the stakes are so much higher now. The second confirmed case of coronavirus in the county came 48 hours after the first; both were travelers from China. But the criteria for sending swabs for testing to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was so stringent and the bottleneck for test results so long, that the county was left hamstrung trying to figure out how big of a problem it really had. Not until nearly a month later, on Feb. 28, two days after the county was finally given authorization to use its own lab and judgment for testing, was the third "positive" confirmed.
It would be a "sentinel case" — a turning point for the virus' spread across the Bay Area — a woman in her 60s with other health conditions. Unlike the first two, this was a clear case of "community transmission," meaning the woman had become infected somewhere in our community, with no clear connection to a traveler. "In very short order," Cody said, "it became apparent we needed to start scaling up fast...." By March 9, the sick woman in her 60s — the sentinel case — had died, and 43 cases had been confirmed, the highest of any county in California. Santa Clara County would now be branded across the country as a coronavirus "hot zone...."
"It was clear to me already how quickly it was moving, and that's what gave me a sense of urgency," Cody said. "We just needed to embrace the risk and do it."
"I recognize that this is unprecedented," Cody said in announcing the lockdown. "But we must come together to do this and we know we need a regional response... We must all do our part to slow the spread of COVID-19."
A professor of epidemiology at the University of California San Francisco has told the same newspaper "That's going to turn out to be — if all goes well and I'm reading the tea leaves right — one of the major public health triumphs of modern times." That article reports that while California had roughly the same number of cases as New York in the first week of March, "by the end of the month, New York had 75,795 cases while California had a tenth of that — 7,482."
An infectious disease doctor (and associate executive director with Permanente Medical Group) also told Politico Tuesday that at Kaiser Permanente hospitals across Northern California, they're "seeing a leveling off of Covid-19 cases in our hospitals." And one writer even quoted an emergency room doctor at the UCSF hospital who said last weekend they'd seen less than half the normal number of emergency room patients, and "My colleagues at Stanford, as well as at other facilities in San Francisco report much of the same conditions in their hospitals...
"It seems very likely, that the 'shelter in place' policy has had a significant, positive effect on containing the spread of COVID-19 in the Bay Area."
Doctor Who? (Score:5, Funny)
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This Is Why You Should Not Write Every Word With A Capital. Capitals Have A Purpose That Is Not 'Starting Words'.
I Know Other People Do It In Titles And Headlines, But That Does Not Make It Any Less Stupid.
// Parallels ?? (Score:2)
2019-mid-December, Numerous cases of illness emerge from an open-air slaughter and seafood market.
2019-December 26, One of its workers, a man, is admitted to a hospital with symptoms of fever, tight chest, and week-long persistent cough. Doctors from Shanghai’s Fudan University genetically screen a sample of his lung tissue and report an “appearance” to SARS. Concurrently, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan analyze five patients and confidently
So it took 6 weeks in America (Score:3)
January 31st, Cody's cellphone rang at 6:49 a.m. "You've got your first positive," the voice said.
ordering America's very first coronavirus lockdown in six counties on March 16th
Checking the calendar, that is 6 weeks and 3 days. With the virus genome already known and it was possible to have a test to give a clear cut "positive". It was lauded as "one of the major public health triumphs of modern times".
Compared with China, even if you take the timeline from NPR [npr.org], and count from 8 Dec when was at that time an *unknown* pneumonia. It still only took China just 7 weeks, on 23 Jan, to completely lockdown Wuhan and then the whole country.
The virus wasn't identified until 3 Jan (that,
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Compared with China, even if you take the timeline from NPR , and count from 8 Dec when was at that time an *unknown* pneumonia.
~khchung
2020-January 27, The Lancet Study of cases related to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market radically challenges two aspects of earlier reports described in this timeline. The study posits that cases of infection occurred far earlier than mid-December that are epidemiologically unrelated to the suspected market and the age distributions of diagnosed cases skew much younger.
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The study posits that cases of infection occurred far earlier than mid-December that are epidemiologically unrelated to the suspected market and the age distributions of diagnosed cases skew much younger.
Lacking further evidence, this is just speculation.
Given how quickly the virus spreads, roughly 10x in 8-10 days, if the virus was already spreading earlier, say since mid-November, then by 23 Jan when Wuhan was locked down, pretty much its ENTIRE population of 11 million or so would have already been infected, and we would have seen twenty Italy being played out in the rest of China over February, and foreign reporters in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong would have seen something. It would not be possible for
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Lacking further evidence, this is just speculation.
~khchung
...it doesn't make sense that the virus started way earlier, if it did then literally 10's of millions more would have it.
~bloodhawk
There is not proof of this.
~SirAstral
But...but...but The Lancet is a world reknowned source of peer-reviewed articles relating to medical research and its practice. When it posits a position, it is a gold standard to inform policy makers around the world.
You guys examined the report, yah? Its link from Vox...Jan 27
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/27/... [vox.com]
The Lancet's lanced nonsense is here...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext
By 2020-March 27,The a Lancet editor "lashes out" at ol' Boris for purs
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There is not proof of this.
It is possible one of the early strains was not very infectious/contagious... but mutated into a very effective spreader later. We literally have to wait for all the strains to be studies and understood first.
We literally do not know enough right now to know anything. There are studies dating this virus for potentially a year now.
Very unlikely from what we have seen so far [nextstrain.org]
No one has yet found a singel case of your mythical precursor strain that was spreading earlier.
Is there even a point if as you say it wasn't very contagious or infectious. Isn't it irrelevant?
We only care about the one strain that started the infection we can see is killing people. Unless you are worried the 'other version' no one has seen yet will also mutate in some random country and give us Covid-20.
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China had instances of COVID-19 back in October, at the latest. Even if you believe it didn't get noticed until November, they still liked and covered it all up for 1.5-2 months, then welded people into their homes, fired some local officials, and stopped reporting numbers.
So.. (Score:3)
It’s likely this approach could be used to also save tens to hundreds of thousands of lives by effectively delaying until a vaccine or effective drugs are identified.
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Your approach is one of the approaches that would have saved more lives and caused less economic damage, but the unfortunate truth about the world at large is that we have become risk adverse. We are so afraid of making a mistake with an early decision that we have now caused far more damage and destruction.
The moment this was discovered medical agencies such as the CDC/WHO should have all been reviewing this internally without any input, involvement, or trust of dirty China's information control apparatu
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Your approach is one of the approaches that would have saved more lives and caused less economic damage, but the unfortunate truth about the world at large is that we have become risk adverse. We are so afraid of making a mistake with an early decision that we have now caused far more damage and destruction.
That was one approach unavailable in America due to politics / freedoms / lawyers.
You couldn't have forced people to be tested against their will for a virus that so far hadn't really done anything the US yet. You can't even force vaccinations, and we know they save lives. How would you lock up people who are infected, especially if they aren't showing symptoms? And once you start to do that. It's just going to make testing even harder. People will resist more.
Thousands dying and still people in America ar
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Testing and tracing is more effective (a lot more effective). But the sledgehammer total ban method will also work if used judiciously. The moment the first case was detected in the nursing home in Washington, the entire town should've been locked down. The moment the first NYC case detected from someone who attended a synagogue, everyone who at
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The moment the first case was detected in the nursing home in Washington, the entire town should've been locked down.
Nah, fuck you. You don't get to tell me what to do.
Signed,
America
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Well, it also doesn't help that the mayor of Ground Zero in the US - Bill De Blasio of NYC - was still saying on March 10th that it was like the common cold [washingtonexaminer.com]. And to go on about your life as if nothing happened. Because doing otherwise would make him look weak... Deaths of others before sacrificing your own appearance, eh Mr. Mayor?
And he wanted to be President...
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
... And he wanted to be President...
Well, the guy who is President was saying the same or worse at the time and his approval rating has gone up!
But the important difference is the POTUS has access to experts AND intelligence that the average joe does not. There is no excuse, other than vanity and stupidy, that Trump miss managed this so badly.
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And it will go away (Score:3)
March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.
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Bill De Blasio of NYC - was still saying on March 10th that it was like the common cold.
Can you point to when President Trump was saying that on March 10th or later?
March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2020 [factcheck.org]...
So no. You can't.
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Do I really still have to explain to you that states are supposed to be free to run themselves, many states do not have any major issue with this virus (and will not), and that no lockdown order is actually legally enforceable?
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What if we can find an example of some other blowhard claiming on March 23 (2 weeks later) or so that worldwide is was only killing 4k a month? (it had just killed that many the previous few days)
What if he also said he stood by his claim that it wasn't a big deal. Order of magnitude less than H1N1?
You'd have to think that person was very reckless and stupid wouldn't you?
That blowhard was you by the way [slashdot.org]. It's lucky nobody is foolish enough to listen to your advice.
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Nice catch
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we could have done what South Korea did
South Korea still has social-distancing and stay-at-home directives. They are doing great at limiting cases, but there is still a cost and they aren't out of the woods (2nd waves are possible anywhere).
They'll probably be able to lift limites earlier than other nations, so there is still an economic benefit, in addition to the human one. However you can't call life there normal by any stretch.
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Problem solved.
Of course we instead argued about the whole thing for a couple of months.
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Merely implementing a modest travel ban from China triggered nearly one half of the country to call the President racist and xenophobic, undermining the most basic tenants of what it means to be an American - I find it humorous that you think the government could have simply enacted a complete travel ban with what, ten or twenty confirmed cases?
Those same critics also said - proudly - that BECAUSE of the Coronavirus crisis developing in our country we should, as a humanitarian necessity, open our borders co
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No, it wasn't. There were tons of talking heads calling it racist. You can watch any of the press briefings. Reporters ask about it, ask him to comment on the claims from pundits and politicians that he's a fucking racist for closing the borders, that he's a racist for calling it the Chinese virus, etc.
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Isn't hindsight incredible? With hindsight you were able, from your sofa, to single-handedly save "tens to hundreds of thousands of lives"!
Ask yourself this simple question - Why couldn't the US simply clone the infamous "South Korean" tests? I don't have a good answer, but I bet it isn't because Dr. Faucci and his team at NIH and colleagues at the CDC didn't think of it...
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The reason the US testing took longer is because we wanted tests that worked. The Chinese tests most of the world is using are giving a positive result on a positive case about 30% of the time. The earlier testing used in most countries, including South Korea, was nothing more than temperature scanning.
The truth is Taiwan and South Korea handled this well because of 3 things:
- They strongly distrust anything coming from China.
- They have a pretty tight grip on their population.
- Th
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The WHO test protocol came from Germany and was ready before the Chinese test.
Vs (Score:5, Interesting)
Nations that got testing early and who actually tested their tests.
Nations with stockpiles of civilian use masks.
Part of the world who kept their stockpiles ready rather than not buying new, not knowing how to read an expiry date.
Nations that did not just remove their medial stockpile for political resins and never replace the masks and other personal protective equipment.
The news is of "March 16th"... nations had been in the news weeks before that getting ready....
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This needs upvoting.
No matter how the pie is sliced there are some serious failures. We pay a lot of money to large groups of "professionals" to keep on top of this stuff for everyone and they didn't keep on top of shit.
Their best was a public notification that we were in the middle of a pandemic AFTER everyone already knew it! I wish for once, the American people would put aside their politics and vote for anything else other than the status quo this next election cycle. Nothing with an R or D next to
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Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore. Nations that got ready really and tried to tell the world.
This didn't surprise me.
I remember my post [slashdot.org] back in 2009 when H1N1 (called swine flu then) was spreading, explaining what Asia countries did during SARS, and was modded flamebait.
I said
It doesn't matter if swine flu kills less than 1/10 of the infected compared to SARS if it infects 100x or 1000x as many people, you are going to see death tolls in the thousands or tens of thousands if its spread is not checked soon.
If you are in a hot zone, got look up the archives at the SARS news in Asia, see what happened there and learn how to prepare yourself. Do it for your family's sake at least.
And, surprise, surprise, H1N1 has an estimated 151,700 to 575,400 deaths total [wikipedia.org] while SARS only killed 774 [wikipedia.org].
Go back and see the comments back in 2009 [slashdot.org]. They were so similar to the ones recently [slashdot.org]. Obviously people never learns from history.
The death tolls may reach millions this time.
It's the hurricane Katrina syndrome (Score:3)
Ohio's Republican Governor (Score:3)
Ohio's governor also acted early [bbc.com]. He listened to expert advice from specialists, and too action.
Refreshing to see, specially from a Republican.
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Refreshing to see, specially from a Republican.
This issue really has nothing to do with what political party you're a member of. Democrats were telling people there was nothing to worry about, same as Trump just a few weeks ago: https://yournews.com/2020/03/3... [yournews.com]
I hate how everything is always turned into a political issue.
Re:Ohio's Republican Governor (Score:4)
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Competence used to be expected even of Republicans, but somewhere along the way that all went potatoe-shaped.
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Only 90s adults will get that reference.
a mistake (Score:2)
That the whole this thing, lack of masks, sanitizers, etc. is a kind of social media inspired "toilet paper" run.
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So they get the access to the antibiotics too late for them be effective. Though I have no idea if it is true about the medical insurance situation.
He also mentions that not all hospitals in NY are overwhelmed.
It seems that if the US authorities provide the temporal universal medical insurance
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Not all pneumonia is bacterial. The pneumonia caused by COVID-19 is not bacterial. The pneumonia vaccine does not prevent it. Antibiotics do not treat it.
It’s not pneumonia as you know it; it’s a facet of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. There is no medical cure for ARDS. Severe COVID-19 causes ARDS, which is what leads to the need for a ventilator.
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/ards [slashdot.org]
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.net , I believe
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Yes, we understand that this is a very rapidly transmitted virus.
But nobody is saying how deadly it really is.
As if there were not tons of public website [worldometers.info] giving you all the numbers, there were so many posts right here in /. that discussed, analyzed and argued the death rates to death already.
The rate range from optimistic of 0.5-1%, to 5-10% (or more) if all ICU beds and ventilators got full.
Remember, patients take some time (often weeks) to die. For simplicity, assume the people who died today were confirmed infected 12 days ago. Take America case numbers for example, it doubled roughly every 3 days. That means
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> rate range from optimistic of 0.5-1%
I think even 1% is overstated, because most infections are not counted. So if your case fatality rate is 2%, but you are missing 80% of cases...
> to 5-10% (or more) if all ICU beds and ventilators got full.
Most people (about 60-70%) you put on a ventilator with COVID-19 still die, so running out of ventilators doesn't swing fatality rates quite this much. Still, you don't want to overwhelm the healthcare system (in part because it will increase the death rate s
Re:Death numbers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, and if the studies that imply that for every 1 we find there are at least 6 more that go undiscovered then we are seeing the death rate much lower than usual flu like problem that we don't bat and eye out.
But one thing is for certain, this stuff looks to be very contagious and medically expensive to deal with as you have said. That has driven people into panic, and we all know that panic is never good. Bad decisions are made and they are made fast.
We already lost the containment war, that is already publicly admitted we are just trying to "flatten" the curve as they say and just delaying what is inevitable. Most quarantine efforts are failing miserably, which just leaves us with just the negative economic fall out.
I am all for flattening the curve, but I think we can do that while not wrecking everything to shit.
All we needed to do was issue a termination freeze and let businesses file for recuperation of wages of people being out sick so they can have sick days and employers would not be super screwed by a forced shutdown.
Of course we waited too late and dragged our heals for this to be plausible now. We literally watched our window of opportunity walks by, slowly too! AND we waved at it as it told us we are too late.
We said... naw... we good! and Turned around and looked right into the abyss and then proceeded to freak the fuck out!
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we are just trying to "flatten" the curve as they say and just delaying what is inevitable.
Flattening the curve is not just delaying the inevitable. It is saving a great many lives of people who would otherwise die. If X amount of people will survive with medical help and you don't give it to them they will die. Flattening the curve saves all those people. If there is enough medical help they will live. If it all hits at once, they will not. It's simple as that. If you have say 100,00 ventilators ICU doctors whatever and it takes 2 weeks to save someone. Every 2 weeks you slow it down saves 100,0
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"Flattening the curve is not just delaying the inevitable."
For the most part it really is just that. Medical professionals all over the place are saying a significant portion are going to catch this. That means "inevitable". The best we are doing is maybe saving a few extra lives at potentially costing them elsewhere. The USMC Comfort is one example of this. If that ship is converted to a corona-virus quarantine then people that need serious medical attention for non corona-virus related issue could di
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2% - 4% of cases age 20-44 required ICU care. Once you end up running out of ventilators
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> rate range from optimistic of 0.5-1%
I think even 1% is overstated, because most infections are not counted. So if your case fatality rate is 2%, but you are missing 80% of cases...
People keep saying this ("missing 80% of cases") but there was never any evidence beyond speculation*.
South Korea had contained this pretty well, or else they would be like Italy in these last few weeks. Even they had a ~3% death rate. If SK had been missing 80% of cases, there is no way they could have a roughly flat number of daily new cases for a whole month.
China had most cases concluded already, and they saw a ~4% death rate. It included the quite swamped Hubei region, so not surprisingly it was hig
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Every single source I read is ~0.7% mortality rate, certainly not f'n 3%.
Business Insider [businessinsider.com] "The report counts a total of 7,755 cases through March 11 and 60 deaths, for a total death rate of 0.77%."
Asia Times [asiatimes.com] "In Korea, as of March 9, that figure was a mere 0.7%."
So if you have some sources to contradict my 2 minute search [duckduckgo.com], feel free.
Re:Death numbers. (Score:4, Informative)
I want to know where you are getting your numbers for South Korea.
You quote early March figures for discussion in April? Look at the up to date numbers.
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
As of writing, 10,237 cases, 183 deaths, 6,463 recovered.
Low estimate: deaths / cases = ~1.79%
High estimate: deaths / recovered = ~2.83%, I rounded up to 3.
In any case, there is no way 1% was overstated.
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Not tons of websites with the logarithmic (actually semilog) display option, so thanks for that. I've been looking for a while and this is the first such I've seen. Quite useful for visual understanding, though it would be better if it it could compare countries in terms of the relative growth rates. Other limitations in the options compared to websites I've seen, but still a good resource just for that feature.
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I am somewhat confused about the the reported mortality rate of COVID-19.
A recent WebMD article [webmd.com] states: In the new analysis, the death rate in confirmed COVID-19 cases is estimated to be 1.38% (emphasis mine).
Further down, it says: The CDC, World Health Organization, and others have reported rates of 3.4% overall
Ignoring the unconfirmed cases (which is consistent with what the numbers above refer to), if we look at the resolved cases, the numbers [worldometers.info] show a mortality rate of 21%, over six times the WHO numbers
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Cases are growing exponentially. A large percentage of cases are from the past 48 hours on a rolling basis.
Death is the only way to get a quick resolution. Recovery takes a statistically long time compared to death (like 2 weeks instead of 2 days). Most of this is down to how late in the process people are getting diagnosed, if at all.
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Recovery takes a statistically long time compared to death (like 2 weeks instead of 2 days).
That's what I thought, but apparently it is not the case.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The severity of COVID-19 varies. The disease may take a mild course with few or no symptoms, resembling other common upper respiratory diseases such as the common cold. Mild cases typically recover within two weeks, while those with severe or critical diseases may take three to six weeks to recover. Among those who have died, the time from symptom onset to death has ranged from two to eight weeks.[33 [who.int]]
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I also know that symptom onset doesn't correlate with when they were tested.
The range of 2-8 weeks to death are also just the outliers. I found some more specifics on the spread:
Mean time from illness onset to death was 20 days (17 to 24; standard deviation [SD], 10 days [7 to 14]).
That's a huge standard deviation. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news... [umn.edu]
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In China there are reports that it takes 7 - 14 days from symptoms until ICU admission (for non-survivors) and 3-11 days from ICU admission to death (table 3). https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]
From Italy there is data that from ICU admission to death take about 10-12 days and recovery takes even longer with 15 days. https://www.esahq.org/esa-news... [esahq.org]
So that would be 11-39 days from infection to d
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Is it not a valid assumption that all the unresolved cases will eventually get resolved (one way or the other) with a statistically similar breakdown to the ones that already have? So what is the reason for the big discrepancy?
That study only looked at China. And the 2nd paragraph says: "And the rate may not hold true for other countries, which vary in how they are responding to the virus and in hospital resources." The WHO and CDC is reporting on overall rates so far. So far being the important words.
Re:Death numbers. (Score:4, Funny)
I just checked:
2015 - 0 NY, 0 CA
2016 - 0 NY, 0 CA
2017 - 0 NY, 0 CA
2018 - 0 NY, 0 CA
2019 - 0 NY, 0 CA
2020 - 3565 NY, 319 CA
Re: (Score:3)
Apparently, I should move to one of those places. It seems that most years, NY and CA are entirely impervious to all forms of death and disease--and all accidents, too.
Neat.
Re: (Score:2)
None of them are safe.
Re: (Score:2)
But nobody is saying how deadly it really is.
That is factually untrue. You can do the math yourself [worldometers.info]. Worldwide about 5.3%. In the US, 2.7% so far.
Can someone check the number of deaths in New york and California over previous years?
I can guarantee you that 3500 people did not die due to corona virus within a matter of months in New York.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, we understand that this is a very rapidly transmitted virus.
But nobody is saying how deadly it really is.
Can someone check the number of deaths in New york and California over previous years?
Sure, last year there were Zero deaths due to Covid-19 in both of those places.
Same as all the previous years.
You're welcome.
Re:Impossible Numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
This claim seems 100% contrary to evidence and contrary to common sense. Please cite source.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.pnas.org/content/1... [pnas.org]
Wait... you need a link to prove something that is in fact... common sense?
I don't think we have the same definition of common sense. People can and do make counter productive decisions all the time. We are literally watching all of these lock-downs become seriously close to becoming counter productive.
But you see... during an economic downturn it is not as easy to assign blame when people are dying, it just becomes "accepted lose considering the circumstance" but this is
Re: Impossible Numbers (Score:2)
That study does not back up your claim in the least bit.
The evolution of population health during the years 1920â"1940 confirms the counterintuitive hypothesis that, as in other historical periods and market economies, population health tends to evolve better during recessions than in expansions.
Your claim was pretty extraordinarily and requires extraordinary evidence.
Re: (Score:3)
Hold up, I am not talking about health here. We are discussing mortality. People health is not an issue here.
If you read the outcomes of this chart, the resulting restoration of the economy is going to create a lot of death. The study does not make this clear, but it does hypothesis that increase in activity like traffic are a part of the cause.
So whether your on the economies rise is the killer or decline is the killer there is clearly a killer somewhere in the middle of major economic changes. If I ha
Re: (Score:2)
Hold up, I am not talking about health here. We are discussing mortality. People health is not an issue here.
Ah yes. The completely alive, well, yet "unhealthy" person by your magic measure. Or populace. Whatever goalpost you want.
Compared to the dead, ill, yet "healthy" person you've conjured up.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is specifically knowing, which is going to kill more of us. Doing a Lockdown, doing a scapel approach, or doing little to nothing and letting nature take its course.
Lockdown - less.
Nature takes its course - way way way more.
scalpel approach - not actually a thing that exists - see nature takes its course.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you folks not read, this study does not disagree with me in the least.
It shows clear mortality rates associated with economic turbulence. So here is a question.
If you get into a car accident and go to the hospital. You survive the accident but instead you die from MSRA during your stay in the hospital.
Did the car accident kill you? It definitely put you in the hospital to catch MSRA.
"Few if any studies have specifically focused on the evolution of population health during the Great Depression in the U
Re: (Score:2)
They also noted with puzzlement that infant and tuberculosis mortality declined between 1929 to 1933
Puzzlement? The obvious solution was that the birthrate went down because, you know, Great Depression. When the Depression ended, birthrates went up, as did infant mortality rates.
Why do you believe the economy picking up will cause more deaths? More deaths than when everyone was (supposed to) stay indors for three-six weeks? Well DUH! When people start moving around the country they will put themselves at greater risk than when they sat at home on the sofa.
Dear lord, is that the painfully obvious "fact" yo
Re:Impossible Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-usa-cost/ [reuters.com]
I don't think most countries are at the optimal place in the tradeoff, but to pretend there is no tradeoff whatsoever (as many in the media are doing) is exceedingly naive.
One of the researchers in that article estimated that 20% unemployment could cause 48 million years of life lost. The US life expectancy is ~80 and the mean Covid-19 death is ~60, so each covid death is ~20 years of life lost. So the 48 million years would correspond to 2.4 million Covid-19 deaths. Now of course these are all projections from models and you can question that researcher's assumptions and methods. There's a real discussion to be had though.
Re: (Score:2)
Many/most covid-19 deaths were people with underlying conditions - respiratory, circulatory, etc. - are THOSE the people you expected to live until they were in their eighties?
Where do you come up with 2.4 million deaths in the USA? That has always been touted as the "if we did nothing" number, but, we've done many, many things - that 2.4 million number is not in play anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
With good medication it is perfectly possible to live that long despite the high blood pressure.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a plausible expectation but it's hard to estimate an accurate number, but we can probably see it in the statistics in the years to come.
But to have a napkin calculation:
- The life expectancy of the richests is about 8 year / 10% higher than the poorest
- The estimated economic shrink in my country, if the measurements last a full year, is about 10%.
- Assuming 10% less economy is 10% less income on average (might be worse for some groups), leading to 10% more poverty on a scaleless index
- Assuming after
Re: (Score:2)
source for 10% economic loss: various dutch articles, but for example https://www.rtlz.nl/algemeen/b... [www.rtlz.nl] . Seems estimates for USA go from 5% to 20%.
The 1% shorter lifespan is the 10% increased lifespan for being rich instead of poor times the 10% increased poverty rate; so 10% lifespan of 10% scaleless gives 1% reduced lifespan.
Re: (Score:3)
The USA is an upper income country even during a shutdown with 30% unemployed -- there's more than enough money to take care of everybody. If anyone dies from losing their job, their blood is on the hands of people who vote for such an utterly unnecessarily cruel system.
Considering that unemployment is now paying minimum wage workers far more money than they made while employed, presumably you're saying it's the USA's feudal health care system which ties people's health to their employer which is killing pe
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the US healthcare system is definitely part of the reason people are dying. This is also going to be directly linked to people being jobless. The link I provided gives the impression that health goes up during recessions and depressions, but it also shows a backlash increase as productivity ramps back up and economic recovery begins. There is no specific reason found why there is an improvement followed by mortality increase but it is likely the same rubber-band effect the economy has on things. It
Re: (Score:2)
presumably you're saying it's the USA's feudal health care system which ties people's health to their employer which is killing people?
Are we now just ignoring the fact that back in 2010 the Democrats came up with a federal program that was designed to provide heathcare coverage for the countless millions that didn't have health insurance from their employer?
Re: (Score:2)
The USA is an upper income country even during a shutdown
Yeah, but letting Doctor Who order a shutdown seems a bit third world, I'm disappointed.
Re: (Score:2)
Deaths from economic impact are a choice. Those people can be bailed out or not.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Trump did the same... (Score:2)
... explains how the Chinese tendency to hide the truth allowed the coronavirus to spread quickly ...
And Trump did the same! As is usual for Trump, he denied the truth, tried to supply his own fantasy ("will go away magically") and resisted/botched testing allowing the virus to spread. And Trump has access to intelligence that most individuals do not have access to.
Imagine if Trump had control over the media like he would like to have and have Fox News as our official news source.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you sure about that? Sweden is preparing for thousands of deaths due to lax virus policy. [bloomberg.com]
Worldmeters has a pretty good statistical layout on COVID-19 (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries). As of 4/6/2020, Sweden shows 477 deaths so far, with no lockdown policies in place that I'm aware of. The USA, which has gone full retard on lockdowns, has 9679 deaths reported.
News flash: COVID-19 is was already a thing late last year in China and it's already here in the USA. No amount of lockdowns, idiotic "social distancing" policies, and useless stay-at-home orders are going to have any