7% of Americans Have Had Covid-19 (cnn.com) 263
CNN reports:
According to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States, there have been at least 23,754,315 cases of coronavirus in the U.S., and at least 395,785 deaths. On Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 198,218 new cases and 3,286 new deaths...
On Friday, the CDC said new more contagious variants of the coronavirus will likely accelerate the spread of the virus and that means the US must double down on efforts to protect people.
The U.S. Census Bureau calculates the country's entire population is 330,827,996 people. These figures suggest 7.18% of the American population has now experienced the disease — more than 1 out of every 14 Americans.
On Friday, the CDC said new more contagious variants of the coronavirus will likely accelerate the spread of the virus and that means the US must double down on efforts to protect people.
The U.S. Census Bureau calculates the country's entire population is 330,827,996 people. These figures suggest 7.18% of the American population has now experienced the disease — more than 1 out of every 14 Americans.
Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:2)
... before everybody in the US has had it.
Latest doubling looks like it took just under 2 months. Extrapolating that (ignoring that it WILL fold down near the end as it runs out of targets, vaccines, and a bunch of other deltas) and you're talking hitting the wall around Labor Day.
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(ignoring that it WILL fold down near the end
So Labor Day... 2022.
Re:Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:4, Informative)
So Labor Day... 2022.
Jan 2021: 7.18%
March 2021: 14.36%
May 2021: 28.72%
July 2021: 57.44%
Sept 2021: hit the 100% wall or some other limit by then.
Nope. Sept 2021.
Of course something will pull it off the approximate exponential somewhere before the impossible 100+%. Most processes that start out with exponential growth within a limited population end up making an S curve (the integral of an epi curve included).
On the other hand, it could go faster and sooner, as the new, more contagious, mutants take over. Increased contagiousness on the virus' part does exactly the opposite of all the "flatten the curve" mitigation efforts.
(Think of it as evolution in action: Both COVID's and ours.)
Re: Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:2)
I guess that's true, since more people than have been tested will have actually have had the disease, so will have some resistance. If it was in the USA a lot earlier than popular opinion, but in a less virrulent form, then perhaps it'll start the top of the S sooner rather than later.
Re:Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:4, Informative)
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Mutations increase with the number of infections. Effectiveness of antibodies degrades with time and may be less effective against later mutated forms. End result is the spread will continue even beyond 50%, because some of that 50% had it a 6 months ago and recovered.
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Which is a blessing. It seems that at about 1% saturation of active cases the medical infrastruction , as best I can work out, perhaps a little higher if the medical system is well prepared. After that, the hospitals overflow and the death toll shoots through the roof because people in respiratory distress cant get rescue care (intubation, etc)
This vaccince cant come soon enough. Because if 7% covid reach can kill 400K Americans (with some researchers suggesting a significantly higher death rate that hasnt
Re:Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:5, Informative)
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You'd think you'd google a term you'd never heard before correcting someone using said term.
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What madness is this? Next thing you'll be suggesting that people should RTFA before posting
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America is manufacturing a million doses of vaccine per day.
That will increase as more manufacturing capacity comes online.
Each recipient needs two doses. But herd immunity from vaccines will soon start reducing the transmission rate.
Vaccine may be unnecessary (Score:4)
By the time it is available, enough people will have had it that you have herd immunity anyway.
There are two tests. One for the virus itself, and one for the antibodies. The latter tests whether someone has ever had the disease. Doing the second test on a decent sample will give you the rate. If it grows to more than about 40% by the time the vaccine is available, then only give the vaccine to the vulnerable -- the virus has run its course.
P.S. Australia is different (Score:3)
Here, we have an infection rate of about 0.0001% of the population. But then again, if everyone that enters is vaccinated, we might only need to vaccinate the vulnerable.
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By the time it is available, enough people will have had it that you have herd immunity anyway
If so, then history will record this as complete and utter failure.
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I think you answered your own question. I have an Australian friend who moved to England near the end of last year, and his observation is that the messaging about what to do and not do was clearer and more consistent in Australia, and also people took the whole thing more seriously and did what they were asked to do out of a sense of community solidarity.
Re:History already records a failure (Score:5, Informative)
Australia closed its boarders for all non-resident on March 20 and introduced a mandatory supervised quarantine on March 27. I think it helped a lot to contain the first wave, because when you have international travelers, who introduce new infection, it is difficult to do contact tracing and quarantine exposed individuals before they spread the virus to others.
Then in response to the Melbourne outbreak, Victoria underwent a second lockdown, which lasted almost four months. Interstate borders were closed, then 5km radius restriction was added, on top of all other restrictions on social gathering. I don't think any other Western country underwent a second lockdown that would be so strict and so long.
Re: History already records a failure (Score:5, Informative)
Australia and NZ are by far the most âoeorganisedâ Western countries. Most highly governed, most compliant ârule followingâ(TM) population etc. Its why immigrants from elsewhere in the Western world often express surprise at how much of a ânanny stateâ(TM). But that nanny state has its advantages as the pandemic has proved.
The public service in Australia is excellent and the interoperability and cooperation between states far surpasses anything the US or even Canada could muster. Governmentâ(TM)s communication with the people in Australia is always top notch and the same can be said during this pandemic.
On top of that, a strict and early international border closing, and world-leading contact tracing, produced the results it did in Australia and NZ. Every case in Australia is tracked to its original source. Every case in Australia is subject to full genomic testing (which they only do for a subset of cases in other countries), which also provides clues about how the virus is moving.
In North America and Europe borders remained far more open, and contact tracing quickly became impossible to perform for every case - the numbers became too great and the intermixing of the population complicates things too much.
As someone thatâ(TM)s lived for extended periods (years) in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, I can confidently say Australia and NZ succeeded because their government presented a consistent message, imposed tough and early restrictions, and generally had a population all fighting as one to eliminate the virus, who were 99% willing to comply with even the harshest restrictions.
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The governments are not the only factor. Behavior of citizens also is important. In both Europe and the US, there are plenty of people who have basically never known any significant hardship and think that it can't happen to them. So even if governments impose rules, the citizens have to obey the rules as well (to give an extreme example, in France, there was a giant rave party with about 3000 people on New Year's Eve).
My guess is that only about 10% of people need to ignore the rules for the virus to conti
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>"There are two tests. One for the virus itself, and one for the antibodies. The latter tests whether someone has ever had the disease"
That is ignoring T-cells, which can impart another type of immunity which is still in place long after antibodies are gone. But that isn't something that can be easily tested for.
You can have an infection in the past, have testable antibodies for several months, then afterward, come up negative on an antibody test. So an antibody test will not tell you if someone "has e
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America is manufacturing a million doses of vaccine per day.
Why the hell was that not possible with N95 masks? Why is it still not possible?
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Why the hell was that not possible with N95 masks?
The manufacturing capacity for the vaccine was built out in parallel with the research.
If the vaccine had not been approved, the built-out would have been a waste, but it was a gamble worth taking.
With masks, there wasn't enough ramp-up time. So there were shortages.
Why is it still not possible?
N95 masks are currently available on Amazon and at Walmart, so I am not sure what you are talking about.
Re: Less than four doublings left to go ... (Score:2)
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Two factors are going to significantly skew your (crude) model. Obviously the vaccines, which both reduce the susceptible population smaller and decrease R0. Secondly, a significant portion of the population that is able to significantly reduce infection by exercising effective control measures such as masking, stringent hygiene, remote working, remote learning, voluntary isolation. The latter could be substantial, perhaps somewhere between a quarter and a third of the US population, more in other countries
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Exrapolating exponential curves is what makes profit for stockbokers. It doesn't make nearly as much for their clients, who rarely have the insider knowledge available to professional stockbrokers. In this case, there are so many physical, social, and political factors that its _exact_ shape is difficult to predict.
Exponential Growth.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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It doesn't help that the mass media refuses to publish graphs with log y axis scaling.
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It really doesn't matter. Most people really can't do it. Visual aids don't help. Education doesn't help. Preparation and practice, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, nothing helps. Even if they are schooled what to expect immediately beforehand. They just can't.
I know, it sounds unlikely. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it too. But it's true.
This is undoubtedly low. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this number is that we are not testing everyone. We didn't back in April of last year when there simply weren't enough supplies, and we aren't testing everyone now.
Back in April there was a suggestion that for every case positive there were 8 to 10 people who had COVID-19 but who had never been tested; because so many cases are relatively mild or even asymptomatic, and because we had a severe shortage of testing supplies, that suggests that by the end of the summer tens of millions probably had COVID-19 but who never were tested.
And we aren't catching all cases now, thanks in part to asymptotic spread, and thanks to not everyone who has symptoms getting tested.
If we assume 8 times more people have had the disease than have tested positive, that implies that 56% of the population of the United States has had COVID-19. Even if that number is as low as 2 times, that still implies 14% of the population has had the disease. So it's safe to say that the disease is extremely wide spread in the general population, and it's only a question of how wide spread it has been.
Re:This is undoubtedly low. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, headline is very wrong. 7% is only the confirmed cases.
This paper estimated the number of infections at over 14% in mid-November. Still a very long way from herd immunity though.
https://jamanetwork.com/journa... [jamanetwork.com]
A higher number is good, in that it means the infection mortality rate is lower, but this does not mean we should be trying to increase it!
While many of the dead were in nursing homes waiting to die, huge numbers were healthy and active, enjoying their retirement and caring for their grandchildren, before being hit by Covid.
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It turns out, the 7% figure was editordavid's editorializing. What is the real number? We don't know, because the necessary random surveillance testing is completely missing in action. Hopefully the Biden administration has more of a clue and will get that going as an urgent priority.
Who am I kidding? This is America, the fuckups will continue as normal. We may never know accurately how many have had it.
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There's evidence that for at least some people, you can get reinfected with the new strains from S. Africa and the UK even if you have COVID before. This is one reason that there's concern and statements from Fauci and others about the serum treatments becoming less effective or ineffective. While the studies aren't robust, the vaccines appear to still be effective against those strains, however.
It looks like the vaccines provide more robust immune protection than getting sick, a
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Ridiculous that none of those use a log y axis scale. Graphic logistic functions with linear y makes it impossible to identify (and compare) R and doubling periods, let alone inflection points and significant changes in R.
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6 to 1 is the number I read from my local health authorities.
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at 14% that's two doublings to 56%
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6 times 23 million is 138 million.
If that many Americans already had the disease and are presumably immune from reinfection, the infection curve would be bent much more than it is.
Re: This is undoubtedly low. (Score:2)
Re: This is undoubtedly low. (Score:2)
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>"If we assume 8 times more people have had the disease than have tested positive, that implies that 56% of the population of the United States has had COVID-19."
So, presumably then, up to 56% of people now have immunity. And since 40% of those yet-to-be-infected will have no symptoms (meaning they never get sick because they can't get infected or have natural immunity). So it is really more like half to 86% over, before we even start counting in vaccinations or herd immunity effect.
Or it is the end of
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The model that I've been following most closely is https://covid19-projections.com/path-to-herd-immunity/ [covid19-projections.com] by Youyang Gu.
His models proved to be highly accurate back in the spring of 2020, when there was relatively little information about the epidemiology of COVID-19. In particular, he criticized what he felt was low-quality and inappropriate assumptions made by other, more authoritative outlets like IHME.
Around the middle of last year, I was estimating that the prevalence ratio was somewhere around 3 to 5
Re: The number of infected is irrelevant (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever gave you that idea?
The reinfection rate is surprising low and the virus mutations are slow compared to a flu for example.
Few days ago Science published a paper stating that this will become one of the mild colds that we get all the time. Direct download link:
https://scholar.google.com/sch... [google.com]
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>"but its now clear you only get 3-6 months of immunity and can get reinfected after 6 months"
What are you talking about? Nothing of the sort is "clear." There is almost no evidence of reinfection in 6 months at all with COVID-19. There are a handful of cases out of MILLIONS of cases, meaning, so far, it is statistically almost zero chance of reinfection in the time period it has been observed (which is almost a year now). You can't just go by how long antibodies are present, because that completely
Re:The number of infected is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
If this were true, New York City and New York State, homes of the WORST COVID-19 statistics in the country (death rate close to 4% of confirmed cases, TWICE what every other place has) would have been screaming their heads off for at least four months now, about how reinfection was killing them.
They haven't been.
They've been SILENT on reinfection.
Conclusion: Reinfection may be happening, but it is EXTREMELY rare.
For those who say it wasn't a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
Have you had a chest x-ray? https://www.chron.com/coronavi... [chron.com]
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I'm worried that I had an asymptomatic case back before it was really well known and have some long term damage. Is that 70-80 percent of asymptomatic people have terrible lung damage?
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>"I'm worried that I had an asymptomatic case back before it was really well known and have some long term damage. Is that 70-80 percent of asymptomatic people have terrible lung damage?
I believe you are worried unnecessarily. Asymptomatic but showing positive just means there was enough virus to set off a test, which is an extremely low virus count. Presumably, someone who has no symptoms (but actually was exposed) should have little to no damage because the virus could not replicate to any meaningful
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I doubt it. You don't get a lung worse than a smoker's without some noticeable before and after effects. Even smokers when they quit despite their lung damage never being truly reversed show considerable and noticeable improvement in their respiratory system.
Do you find yourself short on breath now when you weren't before (corrected for the possibility that during COVID-19 you've been laying on a couch for 6 months in work from home like some people)?
Do you have a cough that you can't get rid of?
That's the
Re:For those who say it wasn't a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
That article looks really misleading.
She said it's a rare occurrence when any of her patients' X-rays come back clear of dense scarring.
This is sampling bias.: You only give x-rays to people who you expect to show symptoms.
Those who experienced COVID-19 symptoms have shown a severe chest X-ray every single time.
Replace "COVID-19" with "Pneumonia" and reread that sentence. "Those who experienced Pneumonia symptoms have shown a sever chest X-ray every single time." The correct response to that statement should be "duh, that's what Pneumonia means." This is fearmongering.
It then goes on to say *how* bad the x-rays were. We could rewrite this entire article to be about Flu and it would look the same. The article is implying that everyone who gets covid-19 has these severe long-term symptoms. But this Mayo clinic article says [mayoclinic.org] "Most people who have coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recover completely within a few weeks. But some people — even those who had mild versions of the disease — continue to experience symptoms after their initial recovery." I'm still looking for numbers on how often this happens, but until I find that I take articles like this Chron article with a grain of salt.
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So we have 400,000 dead from Covid so far while the flu killed 60,000 or so last year... You're delusional. You missed the part where 70-80% of asymptomatic people have lungs that resemble those of a lifelong smoker. That will certainly cause you problems down the line.
known cases vs. model cases (Score:5, Informative)
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I suspect it is much higher. Easily 10x.
There was a study in England over the summer, which found that 3.4 million had been infected. Back then, the official number for UK was around 300k. In other words, the survey suggested 11 times more infections than the detected cases.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
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Probably not, 60% is generally considered the herd immunity threshold. It it really was 10x (70%), there would be few new infections. It is clearly not the case.
The 10x underestimate may have been true in the first wave, as few countries had adequate testing capabilities, but now it is more likely to be around 2x. The death rate is estimated to be around 1%, and a 2x underestimate would fit.
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That was before they have ramped up testing.
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I expect the real number is somewhere inbetween, testing has increased, the numbers of people infected has increased so more of the people who think they might have COVID probably now do have covid rather than just a cold.
If 20% of people tested have covid that doesn't mean 20% of the population have covid, some people will get tested because they have a much higher chance of having covid but that doesn't apply to the population at large.
What people should really be tested for is vitamin D deficiency, it is
Genocide (Score:2, Troll)
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Nonsense. As we've seen by the mutations so far, by the time the virus spread to 60%, it will have mutated and start infecting people for round two. Or rather, if the mutations with it only 1/4 of the way there are worrisome enough they were wondering if the vaccine would work... extrapolate.
Re: Genocide (Score:2)
https://scholar.google.com/sch... [google.com]
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It's also spreading like gangbusters in some other countries whose government has taken this virus very seriously right from the beginning.
And for what it's worth, the people in those countries are blaming their elected leaders too, so I guess that's just a thing people do.
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that's not what I see, thing was going gangbusters in Australia until the hot weather hit, then curve went down. In a few months you'll be on the fucked path again.
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Most of the deaths were in one state, Victoria - who then locked down, hard and long.
We shall see, but I think Australia is on the right path.
Just ask the tennis players who recently arrived! :)
Re: Genocide (Score:2)
Victoria had a strict four month lockdown over winter, so numbers were already almost non-existent when hot weather arrived. Sydney recently had a small outbreak even though the weather was already hot. Brazil has had a hell of time, and pretty sure somewhere like Manaus is hot all year around.
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At least in Peru it may have a genetic component to their susceptibility, Peruvians in the US apparently also have a higher mortality rate than average. Andean peoples have several genetic adaptations to life at high altitude which may also make the virus more lethal for some reason.
Free country (Score:2)
Most of the power to fight this lies at the individual personal responsibility level. As almost all power is.
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>"I don't believe that it has been established that recovery from the disease confers immunity as with other viral diseases."
Yes it has.
https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
90% of those infected have been shown to have strong immunity PAST 6 months. It could be much, much longer; so far we only know it is at least 6 months. The vast majority of the remaining 10% will likely also have some level of immunity.
Re:Genocide (Score:5, Informative)
Bluntly: If having and recovering from COVID-19 does not confer immunity, we would be hearing New York City and New York State screaming bloody murder about reinfection, as they have some of the highest infection rates in the country, and one of the highest deaths per confirmed cases rates in the WORLD.
We are not hearing them scream.
Furthermore, bluntly: If having and recovering from COVID-19 does not confer immunity, then the COVID-19 vaccines are worthless.
The vaccines work exactly the same way as having the disease and recovering works: they stimulate an immune response, which tells the body that "This stuff is BAD!!!! Kill it if you see it again!!!". For the vaccine to grant any level of immunity, it must also be the case that actually having HAD the disease ALSO confers some level of immunity.
The People's Republic of China published a serious study recently that showed that transmission of COVID-19 by asymptomatic patients just did not happen. Period. (Whether you choose to believe the PRC on anything is up to you, but, taken at face value, the study appears to have been very well-constructed and well-executed.)
This study means that someone has to get sick enough to be symptomatic in order to be a significant transmission risk. The vaccines are specifically intended to keep someone from getting that sick.
Percentages - do we really need the comparison? (Score:4, Informative)
7.18% of the American population has now experienced the disease - more than 1 out of every 14 Americans.
That was just as necessary a clarification as saying "more than 7 out of every 100 Americans".
Re: Percentages - do we really need the comparison (Score:3)
That was just as necessary a clarification as saying "more than 7 out of every 100 Americans". Your comment only goes halfway there. That's like one in every two comments.
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People are bad at fractions. Articles that can summarize to 1 in X are better understood at an instinctive level.
To say nothing of 1/14 is technically a slightly higher rate than 7/100
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Yes we do. The sad reality is a large portion of people do not have a feel for what percentages mean.
significant under reporting (Score:2, Troll)
Testing rates aren't anywhere near high enough to get on top of outbreaks or track the real numbers. And contact tracing would be assisted by wider use of apps to backtrack the movements of positive cases. But people are idiots.
Re: significant under reporting (Score:2)
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Back even earlier, you could board a plane at the last minute by paying cash for a ticket then walking to the plane. They didn't ask for ID so you could give them any name you wanted. The most important question back then was "Smoking or non-smoking seat?"
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It was the 1918 flu pandemic that led to the Japanese wearing masks so ubiquitously, so masks may become the fashion if you're not feeling 100% or have a cough. No bad thing either.
These folks have had the first shot of a vaccine (Score:2)
https://www.houstonchronicle.c... [houstonchronicle.com]
"Effectively, COVID acted like your first vaccination, so your first shot of vaccine is going to be a boost. If you’ve had COVID, you might be able to get away with a single-dose boost — we don’t know — but why not take both of them? There’s no way that this can harm you. It is only training a population of cells. They are very loyal, good little soldiers, and they are out there to protect you."
Hurd immunity (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hurd immunity (Score:5, Funny)
!% die, 395k died -- 39 million infected. Straigh (Score:2)
!% die, 395k died --> 39.5 million infected. Straight math. That's 12% of the population.
If it is less deadly then even more people have had it. Think it's 0.6% of people who have it die? --> 65.8 million infected. 1.6% die --> 24 million. It's probably around 1%, maybe a bit less now so 12%.
The number dead ignores the percentage broke from paying the emergency room or with trashed lungs or other organs thanks to the infection. You probably know 100 people including friends of friends and relative
No, 7% *knowingly* had it! (Score:4, Informative)
You forgot everyone who had no symptoms or just wasn't tested!
(That is how some states keep their numbers low. They just don't test.)
As a direct result, funeral homes are overwhelmed (Score:4, Informative)
While this number is certainly low because these are only the people who have been tested, the soaring number of people dying every day is overwhelming funeral home staff [cbsnews.com]. These places are resorting to cremations rather than burials in an effort to process the bodies as quickly as they can. In fact, the air quality regulator in Los Angeles has suspended rules to allow crematoriums to reduce the backlog of bodies [cnn.com].
But this spreading isn't going away any time soon. There are a projected 500,000 dead expected by the middle of February [cnn.com], even with vaccinations.
In short, the U.S. is number one in the world for cases and deaths. So much winning.
Re: With a bit of luck (Score:2)
itâ(TM)s a good start for raising the worlds average IQ. If an American moved to YOUR country... Wherever the fuck that may be, we don't know since you're so fucking gutless. If an American moved to your country it would raise the average IQ of BOTH countries. Think about that, idiot.
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Brought to you by Based On Nothing Media Networkz
Re:I'll take those odds (Score:5, Insightful)
Death isn't the only outcome from a Covid infection... I will take reasonable precautions until I can get the vaccine.
You aren't quoting actual odds (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's a 1.6% fatality rate. Which is over 10 times the fatality rate of influenza, and 100 times the fatality rate of polio. And that's with the hospitals not being full. Now that there's nowhere to put patients in some states, fatality rates are going to climb rapidly.
Nevermind, as someone else pointed out, death isn't the only negative outcome of COVID. The much more common one is chronic, debilitating health problems for some indeterminate amount of time (as in, people who got the virus in March still haven't gotten over it).
You're not interested in the actual numbers or outcomes at all, though.
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Two of my brothers-in-law have had it. One is still weak three months later and has to stop while climbing stairs to his second floor bedroom, the other now has arthritis and permanently damaged lungs and possible kidney damage.
So which suite of long term disabilities will you get?
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Your fatality rate number is off by more than a factor of 100. Please get more accurate information before you share any more falsehoods. Your dissemination of this falsehood encourages people to behave irresponsibly and it can result in very real deaths.
Re: I'll take those odds (Score:2)
nothing we can do about it except protect the most. Ftfy. Lung AIDS. I don't want it. You really don't want it. It's under control where I live so hopefully it stays that way until a vaccine is widely available. NO. GONNA. WORRY. If covid attacks your brain you should be ok.
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Neither HSV1 or HSV2 produce long lasting lung damage. COVID-19 does, even if it's asymptomatic (as I just learned). At least in the majority of cases.
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>"Neither HSV1 or HSV2 produce long lasting lung damage. COVID-19 does, even if it's asymptomatic (as I just learned). At least in the majority of cases."
The evidence for that is sketchy at best. Sources I have read say "changes" are seen in CT scans of perhaps up to 67% of asymptomatic cases. But also "Nobody knows exactly what those changes mean yet or whether they will persist and form scar tissue or simply heal and go away after the infection is gone."
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You really should go somewhere besides Breitbart for information.
Quick basic math (Score:2)
14 times 400,000 is 5,600,000.
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Remember when we all thought it would be magically over after three weeks? Realistically, get ready for another year.
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Remember when we all thought it would be magically over after three weeks?"
No, I don't remember such a time. I remember being told a "lockdown" would only last for three weeks, to "flatten the curve" to make sure hospitals were not overrun. That is much different than being "over."
>"Realistically, get ready for another year."
In developed nations? I doubt that. We already have a large number of people who either have natural immunity, or have been infected and gained immunity (at least 47%. 7% from d
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Last year the messaging was "flatten the curve then we're done", don't deny it. A few people had the true picture and were properly terrified.