Coronavirus (No Politics)

That's some bad timing for a house fire...
 
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Really sorry to hear that, Couch - you got dealt a mighty bad hand this year.
@Kordanor; - yep. Simple, routine surgeries are going to be more of a big deal if nobody has any masks or all the facilities are packed. How many people are going to be pushed out of doing colon cancer screening this year and will then forget (willfully or not) to reschedule?
 
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One of my sons is a surgical tech. Elective surgeries at his hospital are cancelled altogether. He's had to pick up hours to support his family by helping with the COVID patients.
 
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I wasn't making any assumptions although clearly you are.

Problem is that this exact same thing has been used by certain people as a reason we should take no action. That was happening still just over a week ago by people in the US.

Also sorry @Couchpotato; for all the crappy stuff happening!
 
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Taking no action is still a very valid option. It depends entirely on your perspective of what the problem is and how to solve it.

Even though a few young people have died, they are the exception and, on the whole, this disease really isn't effecting the younger half of society.

It's a perfectly logical proposition that the way forward might be to let society function normally, but just with all the young people doing everything, those who are happy to run the one in 50,000 chance that it might effect them fatally.

Meanwhile, the most at risk category, the very old, could continue in complete isolation until a cure or treatment or the adequate number of hospitals have been built, which, for a lot of these old people, won't be that dramatic a change to their life of retirement.

In such a scenario the only real drawback is all those old frightened people who are still working and who are not so easily replaced, such as business leaders and socialites and what have you.

I've yet to hear why this version of a solution would be any worse than any other solution going forward aside from the fact that the professional medics 'don't know' if the virus is going to mutate or not.
 
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whatamireading.png
 
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In such a scenario the only real drawback is all those old frightened people who are still working and who are not so easily replaced, such as business leaders and socialites and what have you.

That's sarcasm, right?
 
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Ah, so realism still isn't allowed? Just police state until date unknown and no discussion of making a discussion about hard choices till… when exactly?

I just walked over a motorway bridge, still loads of traffic there, all essential services. Still loads of people out and about. Who is and isn't essential will become a topic ever more so the longer we are all held in state prison…
 
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In your "solution", what happens when dorkus youngus goes to the supermarket, newly infected, and transmits the disease to people just looking to do biweekly grocery shopping?
 
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That is already happening regardless of what you do. Nurses and doctors have to treat the infected patients, said nurses have to shop, people have to serve the doctors and nurses etc etc.

The issue is minimising the effect.

However, once 'minimised', whatever level it is we regard it as being at a minimum, then life will have to start returning to 'normal'.

Or are you someone who likes the notion of prison based on your choice of occupation for an undisclosed amount of time?

Edit: and the last big shop I went in was already mostly staffed by 'new hire teenagers and young folk'...
 
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I really hope this doesn't become one of those threads. :please:
 
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The question posted by lackblogger is worth discussing: If, at least for the young, mortality really was as low as that of a bad flu, why not let them take the risk and sequester the old (in some remote mountain cabin, perhaps?) until the virus has run its course? I believe that was the approach that the UK was going for, at least initially.

However, mortality (or case fatality rate) doesn't give the full picture. The young have a low risk of dying, but the fraction among them that develop severe cases and need hospitalization is quite significant. Plus, the virus seems to spread more aggressively, and thus both faster and more widely, than the flu, and even a very low CFR of 0.1%, as for a bad flu, quickly translates to over 100,000 fatalities among the young in the U.S.

That's the reason to keep the young 'uns off the street - partly because we care about them as well and don't want to write off 100,000 of them, but also to keep the healthcare system functioning. Every individual is not just a potential fatality (that risk is theirs alone to take), but a potential hospital in-patient and a potential carrier as well (and in these functions, they affect others, and it isn't their risk alone any more).

But of course lackblogger and others are right when they point out that the restrictions can't go on indefinitely. Even the introduction of a vaccine would be too distant a finish line. We've slammed the brakes to get a grip on controling the spread; once that is achieved, the trick will be to relax the brakes carefully again at a rate that the health system can handle.
 
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The question posted by lackblogger is worth discussing: If, at least for the young, mortality really was as low as that of a bad flu, why not let them take the risk and sequester the old (in some remote mountain cabin, perhaps?) until the virus has run its course? I believe that was the approach that the UK was going for, at least initially.
There is no pratical way for that to happen without everyone else getting infected. And combined with collapse of intensive care you can maybe get 3-6x fatalities, across a much wider age group. Which is why UK decided to follow flatten the curve.

Those in (or had) intensive care in Norway (of about 6000 positive tests) today:
0-30: 3 persons
30-39: 7 persons
40-49: 22 persons
50-59: 39 persons
60-69: 49 persons
70-79: 37 persons
80+: 9 persons
 
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Indeed @hishadow; , but the current belief is that this virus wont be going away whatever we do.

To which the debate is how are we to manage it. To which there are only really three options:

1) Do the maximum: Everyone locks themselves away for 3 weeks until the virus is dead. Then check and isolate any new cases once we all emerge via everyone having daily checks. Whoever dies at home during this time is the total death toll. No-one goes to hospital, not even staff.

2) Do something: Lock away half the people and let the health service try to cope with dealing with half the cases at a time. Try to have a managed and politely queued death toll over many months. Eventually, after 2 years, someone thinks it might be over because everyone's mostly had it now.

3) Do nothing: Let nature take it's course. Don't prioritise corona patients over any other type of patients. You get Corona, you wait in line with everyone else who has everything else. We learn to live with a higher natural death toll until everyone has been infected or a cure is found.

None of them are 'the right' answer, they all suck and are mostly impractical and all will have chaotic ramifications for society as a whole. But I wouldn't argue any one system is better than another and each method is purely personal perspective.

Option 2 is just easier to sell to the public for obvious reasons. It's the version which seems more… hopeful? …Humane? …Civilised? Whether it's the best option for the reality of life going forward for the majority of the population of any given country? Possibly a different question.

I guess there are people out there who'd rather be in prison for a few months than look out the window and watch a morgue truck load up a few of their neighbours every now and then. Much better for those neighbours to be dying out of site in a hospital somewhere happy in the knowledge that 'we did everything we could and at least we gave them a chance by sacrificing our freedom and normality', etc etc.

1) is what we should be able to do in the sci-fi future, but can't really in our current day and age of no food replicator machines.

2) is a slow societal death of a thousand cuts.

3) is the natural but most ugly to look at way.
 
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Even though a few young people have died, they are the exception and, on the whole, this disease really isn't effecting the younger half of society.

And HERE is the logical fallacy where you are WRONG.

Just because COVID-19 is KILLING younger people at a lower rate, does NOT mean it isn't seriously EFFECTING them.

Basic fact: Caronavirus IS infecting younger people at basically the same rate as older people.

We are now seeing data-based studies showing that nearly half of all hospitalizations due to the virus are <55 years old, with 20% of total under 40yrs.

The difference in age starts only when we look at ICU admissions and death.

Why is this important? Let's assume we immediately go to the 'do nothing' option because we have decided that 5-10 million Americans dying specifically from this virus in 2020 is 'acceptable'. We already know that these types of mortality numbers will overwhelm the health care system, supply chains, and cripple many industries.

But assuming even a 5% mortality rate, that would mean 100 million Americans - or one out of three people - would get sick from the virus, and of those you can assume perhaps half would need hospitalization and significant time off from work along with extended recovery.

So now rather than 10 million hospitalizations we have a minimum of 100 million ... because we are already also hearing about re-infections happening (and fortunately also some non-reinfections). That would absolutely devastate the healthcare system, to the point where we could see at least double the mortality rate due to inability to give proper attention.

Right now we already see in NYC rules saying to ONLY give field resuscitation to cardiac arrest patients due to over-crowding. The scenario above would undoubtedly lead to corpses in houses and in the streets/dumpsters/etc.

So I am not dismissing your option, but instead noting the likely outcome and logical fallacy it is based upon.
 
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2) Do something: Lock away half the people and let the health service try to cope with dealing with half the cases at a time. Try to have a managed and politely queued death toll over many months. Eventually, after 2 years, someone thinks it might be over because everyone's mostly had it now.
I´m firmly in this category where we adapt the best possibly to the infection, on a national level, state level, and county level.

But I dont agree you have to lock away people but you have to adhere to social distancing and business run as normaly as possible if the local situation allows it.
 
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I´m firmly in this category where we adapt the best possibly to the infection, on a national level, state level, and county level.

But I dont agree you have to lock away people but you have to adhere to social distancing and no vacation traveling.

Many countries have now moved into the locking people away stage of 'lockdown', which is the worry going forward at the moment. Giving random police-people the power to over-exert their personality on anyone moving about outside of their property.

This is new as of today in the UK, hence my posts. But has been the trend in other countries for a while now.

People are starting to equate movement, outside of their property, to murder...
 
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we are already also hearing about re-infections happening (and fortunately also some non-reinfections).

This is something that could well be a game changer and very important in how to approach going forward.
 
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Many countries have now moved into the locking people away stage of 'lockdown', which is the worry going forward at the moment. Giving random police-people the power to over-exert their personality on anyone moving about outside of their property.

This is new as of today in the UK, hence my posts. But has been the trend in other countries for a while now.

People are starting to equate movement, outside of their property, to murder…
Here in Norway there are several county that have implemented their own 14 day quarantine rules for people traveling in (which there is a legal basis for). Similarly, how different countries handle the situation vary because the people in power react differently. At this moment its hard to say what is the right solution.
 
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This is something that could well be a game changer and very important in how to approach going forward.

Absolutely - they had a doctor/researcher on the radio this morning talking about how essential it is to follow up on both types of re-exposure cases.

I think it is also critical to understand that only mortality where a confirmed COVID positive test exists is assigned as a COVID death ... and given the dearth of tests in general you can be sure no one will test a corpse when a live person could use the same test kit. That means even with exponential growth in deaths, we are wildly under-reporting both cases and mortality.
 
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