RebKell's Junkie Boards

[GlennMacGrady]

We can play semantic games about which disease is "more fatal", coronavirus or flu. No one really knows the death rate of either -- or what epidemiologists call the case fatality rate (CFR) -- since there's so little testing for either disease. However, the medical community has come to a sort of consensus that the CFR for the flu is 0.1%.

But, in our lay terminology, is SARS, with a CFR of 11%, more fatal than the flu? In my way of thinking, no. SARS has killed only 774 people worldwide whereas the flu can kill that many people a day.

I'm more interested in coronavirus deaths than its unknowable CFR or my crude analog, which has now been officially named the Irresponsible Luuuc Cases to Deaths Ratio (ILCDR). For example, the Ohio Department of Health was all over the news yesterday because their expert claims that there are already 100,000 cases of coronavirus undiagnosed in Ohio. Well, if that's true, I don't think coronavirus is a particularly worrisome disease, given that there have been no deaths in Ohio.

Maybe the University of Minnesota's infectious disease expert, Dr. Michael Osterholm, will ultimately be right. He "conservatively" predicts 480,000 deaths in the U.S. over the next three to seven months. That would be 5,217 deaths per day for the next three months or 2,285 deaths per day for the next seven months. Until something like that happens, I consider him a politicized scaremonger.

But let's use his number of 480,000. Suppose coronavirus sickened that many people over its course but we were confident it would kill no one -- they all get some respiratory distress and maybe a short fever, but everyone lives. Would we be having this level of media hysteria, public panic, governmental intervention, and consequent economic disaster?

NO. Yet the death needle really hasn't yet moved that far above zero.

President Obama didn't declare the H1N1 (swine) flu a national emergency until seven months (October) after the first cases appeared in the U.S. (March) and when the total deaths were approaching 4,000 (November). Even then and thereafter, there was little media attention.

NEVERTHELESS, I'm in favor of all the social distancing and community mitigation measures in the U.S., mainly because they will reduce the infection rates for the flu and all the other communicable diseases with big total death numbers.

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/MagicBusBasketball

[jammerbirdi]

[jammerbirdi]

So I'm with you, Glenn. Until proven otherwise that is. I'm fickle like that. Still waiting for someone to explain why we're wrong here.

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[Luuuc]

[jammerbirdi]

Volume, Luuuc. Volume of travel between China and here and number of citizens here vs smaller European countries. And it’s just a guess. A hunch. So you’re right, ‘likely’ is probably the wrong word there. But the governors of both Ohio and New York have suggested publicly that there are likely 100s of thousands infected in their states. Even 25K in each of the 50 states on average is 2.5 million.

It seems like the argument that’s forming on the other side here that’s trying to have its cake and eat it too regarding testing. But I’ll have to come back to that later.

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[FrozenLVFan]

Jammer,

I think one of the answers regarding the timeline differential is population density. Italy 532 people/sq mile. US 94 people/sq mi. And highly variable demographics. Contrast CA with northern New England, which has a very, very low Chinese population. The virus had to hopscotch from east Asia to Italy, and from Europe to northern N.E. Three of NH's first cases had recently returned from vacation in Italy, two people caught it from them, and the third caught in MA. Minimal risk here from direct Chinese travelers.

And if our timeline is behind, our case severity is lagging behind as well. People don't catch CV and instantly become critically ill.

[jammerbirdi]

What about all the traffic from China into California. And human density at the airport. And California population density?

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[GlennMacGrady]

[jammerbirdi]

So population density of Italy is 532/sqm. LA is 8532. LA County is 2300. Around 20 million people in LA, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. That's approximately one third of the population of Italy or France or Spain etc. in a contiguous urban sprawl of just four Southern California counties. LAX being the primary airport to all.

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[tfan]

[tfan]

[tfan]

[GlennMacGrady]

Update 3: Changes in 24 Hours since Last Update, or as noted

Worldwide:
- confirmed cases increased by 11,207 from 145,369 to 156,396
- deaths increased by 404 from 5,429 to 5,833
- death rate stayed same at 3.73%

China:
- confirmed cases increased by 24 from 80,971 to 80,995
- deaths increased by 10 from 3,193 to 3,203
- death rate increased from 3.94% to 3.95%

U.S.:
- confirmed cases increased by 777 from 2,174 to 2,951
- deaths increased by 10 from 47 to 57
- death rate decreased from 2.16% to 1.93%

Italy:
- confirmed cases increased by 3,497 from 17,660 to 21,157
- deaths increased by 215 from 1,226 to 1,441
- death rate decreased from 6.94% to 6.81%

Washington state (first calculation):
- 40/642 = 6.23%

New York (first calculation):
- 2/613 = 0.33%

California (first calculation):
- 5/368 = 1.36%


Here are the details of the 10 deaths today.

1 in Colorado (the 1st): woman in her 80's with underlying health conditions

1 in Louisiana (the 1st): 58 year old individual with underlying health conditions

1 in Virginia (the 1st): man in his 70's

1 in Florida (the 3rd): 68 year old woman who tested positive after travel to Asia

1 in California (the 5th): woman in her 80's who may have had underlying medical conditions

2 in New York (first two):
- 82 year old woman with underlying respiratory illness (emphysema)
- 65 year old man with "other significant health problems"

3 in Washington (total now 40):
- woman in her 70's
- 2 men in their 80's at the infamous Life Care Center of Kirkland (pictured below), which now has 27 deaths

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/MagicBusBasketball

[GlennMacGrady]

[GlennMacGrady]

[J-Spoon]

I realize that this question is part of the rationale for this thread but the "optimistic" view of this thread keeps bringing me back to one question.

If things aren't that bad, or that big of a deal why are we having an unprecedented reaction?

Sports have stopped, all sports have stopped in America has that ever happened?, tons of people are being put out of work as a precaution, a precaution that is going to undo any economic progress individuals, families and regions have made over the past decade, school's are closing left and right for weeks at a time with no real plan on how families are going to re-organize their lives to cope with the new situations of what to do with the kids during school hours NY subways are near empty (though there were tons of people in Central Park today because it is literally one of the very few places in NY you can go right now), people from Europe can't come to America, Europe! People are getting into fist fights over hand sanitizer and the only bread on the shelves in NY is potato bread, none of this has ever happened in my life time (except maybe pre-Hurricane Sandy for the potato bread) and I existed in the seventies, so what is going on? Are we all going to die? Is this mass hysteria? Is this some new iteration of cancel culture? the unprecedented reaction is in some ways fueling the panic and anxiety that is sweeping the country.

[Luuuc]

Let's say hypothetically that it is fatal for 0.3% of people who get it, so the potential death toll in the USA is 1 million people. What level of disruption is warranted to prevent that outcome?

_________________
Thanks for calling. I wait all night for calls like these.

[readyAIMfire53]

There's a reason Trump's main plan to keep the known cases as low as possible by refusing to begin massive testing. He did it so people would post that this is a hoax and overblown by the media. When mass testing begins (such as drive through testing in Santa Clara County, CA and New Rochelle, Westchester County, NY, there will be massive increases in number of people known to be ill with COVID-19.

Another point to consider: how many people just on this site are at high risk of death if they contract this virus? How many of us are over 60, 70, 80? How many of us have serious underlying medical conditions, which is highly correlated with death from this disease.

It's not THEM. It's US. According to all the professionals who have been doing this full time for a living, US numbers of infection and death will rise.

Italy has a higher number of hospital beds per population than US does. Food for thought. If you've ever been to the ER thinking you're about to die and had to wait for a bed to open up, then you know how many vacant beds exist in hospitals. Very few. I was with a friend last month who had pneumonia and could barely breathe. She waited 10 hours in an ER hallway for a bed to open.

The explanation for why the US has fewer known cases and known deaths of this disease is completely explained by lack of testing. Everyone who died of pneumonia before ANY testing was available is not known and will likely not be known unless someone saved swabs and decides to test them.

_________________
Follow your passion and your life will be true down to your core.

~rAf

[FrozenLVFan]

[jammerbirdi]

Well, I'm more curious or intrigued by these questions of why the US, which includes California, which I've sort of explained as to why I think it would have been the jumping off point for coronavirus outside of China, would lag ten days or two weeks or whatever behind say Italy or Iran in terms of illness and death.

I am not thinking optimistically about where this is now or where it's going even in the US. I'm questioning. I'm deeply concerned that this will kill untold numbers of Americans and that that's most likely going to look a LOT different than an even bad seasonal flu. I think 1918 could be coming up fast in our rear view mirror. I know that none of us here or any other half-intelligent persons would know that no one can know what's going to happen anywhere.

But we can talk about it, try to figure out what the fuck any of this means. Collectively, in the big picture, it might not mean anything other than chance circumstances that are causing the differences in numbers around the globe.

So the only thing I can watch on CNN any more is the late night international desk vibe CNN Newsroom Live where they actually have remote reports and pieces like the old CNN used to run all the time. Boring but that's the way the news used to be. But certainly not boring at the time of a once in a century global pandemic bearing down on the human race.

So let me relay something I just heard that touches on what we're talking about here. I have a new ThinkPad X1 Carbon so I'm loving this legendary ThinkPad keyboard. So I'll transcribe it. It's from an infectious disease doctor in Australia. Oh that CNN could be like this all the time. Anyway, this seems to indicate that experts are noticing how the numbers are differing in different countries.

"We are seeing some disparities. The speed of the outbreak in Italy is much faster than in some other parts of the world. And part of that could be related to early testing and isolation of people and the spent capacity of one's health care system. And even the death rates among certain countries is varying. In Germany, it's less than one percent, whereas in Italy it's about 6.7 percent. And both countries have thousands of cases."

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[tfan]

[FrozenLVFan]

[jammerbirdi]

[readyAIMfire53]

[Luuuc]