Coronavirus (No Politics)

lackblogger said:

Of their first 3,000 odd deaths, the death rate by age was:

90+ 26.6% chance
80-89 23.2%
70-79 15.3%
60-69 4.9%
50-59 1.2%
40-49 0.6%
30-39 0.4%
0-29 0%

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This virus, while aggressive and lethal, is also rather merciful, in its own way, when looking at the big picture, if you view viruses and their like as a necessary means to thin the herd, which we as humans so richly deserve. Sparing the young, whose immature immune systems so often drop them in the same high-risk category as old people, is an unusual kindness. Maybe Mother Nature,isn't so cruel after all.

That said, half of the people I give a damn about in this life are all high risk and live in the same house, so take a smoke break when you get to their place, Mother.

Myrthos said:

What I understand is that the ICUs are filled for a large part with people under 60. Nobody leaves the ICU undamaged. Recovery of a patient once he/she left the ICU is about 7 weeks per week in the ICU (that is the number I remember, so forgive me if it is somewhat off). And even after that there are chances you are still not the same as before. Because of this I don’t think people over 60 often make it to the ICU.
I think the main reason for all the restrictions is that we don’t overload the ICUs and hospitals in general to provide for all those who have a good chance of survival. Without the restrictions, I expect the numbers to be heavily increasing also for those under 60.

Looking back, an immediate lockdown at the early beginning would have been far more efficient, both for the people and the economy.

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Yes, that would be a very important qualifier to the stats as stats by themselves can be very misleading. Are there no casualties for the under 30s because the under 30s are always given priority for the relevant healthcare.

In terms of the revelation of long-term damage to recovered cases, this is another area where there's lots of confusion in finding out the reality of the situation as people are reporting examples of people having barely an noticeable effects while others are reporting examples of people being in agony for days and days.

And to what extent is this discrepancy due to, once again, underlying conditions rather than entirely the work of the virus.

Capt. Huggy Face said:

This virus, while aggressive and lethal, is also rather merciful, in its own way, when looking at the big picture, if you view viruses and their like as a necessary means to thin the herd, which we as humans so richly deserve. Sparing the young, whose immature immune systems so often drop them in the same high-risk category as old people, is an unusual kindness. Maybe Mother Nature,isn't so cruel after all.

That said, half of the people I give a damn about in this life are all high risk and live in the same house, so take a smoke break when you get to their place, Mother.

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Weirdly, the Zimbabwean Religioes are deeming this virus a punishment from God, meanwhile I've no doubt there are religio cults who are saying the exact opposite, that this is a blessing from God as you describe it. Such is the nature of people of a religio mindset.

Another somewhat ironic perspective is that the main 'problem' with this disease is the pressure it puts on the health system, AKA too many people being problematic too quickly for the infrastructure to cope. However... this is entirely the fault of the modern health service in the first place in providing a society with such a large backlog of 'nearly dead' people who are already being kept alive well beyond their rational use-by date;

From hundreds of thousands of old people who if they didn't have a recognised condition they'd be locked up in mental institutions to hundreds of thousands of people on life support machines of one type or another, from pacemakers to ventilators. In fact, the entire 'industry' of making sure everyone gets 'just a few more years'.

From this perspective one could argue the health service is just being hoisted by its own petard.

Myrthos said:

Without the restrictions, I expect the numbers to be heavily increasing also for those under 60.

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Yes, that's the whole ballgame. The percentage requiring critical care is much higher than the current mortality rate. But if all those folks come at once, the mortality could be far, far worse. The scenes at hospitals could be unimaginable in an uncontrolled peak - far beyond anything we've seen so far.

lackblogger said:

Weirdly, the Zimbabwean Religioes are deeming this virus a punishment from God, meanwhile I've no doubt there are religio cults who are saying the exact opposite, that this is a blessing from God as you describe it. Such is the nature of people of a religio mindset.

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Maybe, but I'm not religious.

Edit:
And welcome back, Ripper. Done playing your fiddle? The world is still burning. Still swearing off the Trump thread?

Capt. Huggy Face said:

And welcome back, Ripper. Done playing your fiddle? The world is still burning. Still swearing off the Trump thread?

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Cheers. No, still fiddling, while observing Rome burn.

I just decided to make an exception for the Coronavirus thread, since it's turned the world upside down. I think it's nice for everyone to check in so we know they're doing OK.

No Trump thread or other forms of wrestling for the time being, and hoping this thread doesn't get dragged in that direction.

That all sounds very reasonable. How boring.

Ripper said:

Cheers. No, still fiddling, while observing Rome burn.

I just decided to make an exception for the Coronavirus thread, since it's turned the world upside down. I think it's nice for everyone to check in so we know they're doing OK.

No Trump thread or other forms of wrestling for the time being, and hoping this thread doesn't get dragged in that direction.

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Nice of you to stop by, please stay.

It's hard not to be impressed by Chien when he manages to turn a Coronathread into "UGOIGO is for small minded people". Even more impressive when in this situation the metaphor actually makes sense.

So Dax ended today on about 11%, Dow Jones is at 8.5%
Kinda makes you think "It's all over now, you can go home"...if you weren't home already.

I still expect it to drop by quite a bit as soon as the big spike hits the US.

We've already destroyed the younger generations climate and environment. I don't think we should be destroying their economic future on top of it. Course that may be mute because of the aforementioned climate issue. I don't envy the children growing up in the world we are leaving them.

I've still got hopes that this crisis actually helps the next generation a bit. By force of nature, our society is suddenly starting to consider all the needless commuting, which is not just a question of climate load, or wasted energy, its also a huge waste of time for all people involved. We won't get rid of that completely, but maybe it's at least a turning point.

To be sure, this does not warrant a single death caused by the crisis. It's just a silver lining.

Tonight I shall mostly be playing Half-Life Alyx. Virtual reality seems a good option, as actual reality is now a pain in the arse.

I wasn't all that interested in the game, as I thought it was just going to be a Half-Life flavoured VR novelty. But reportedly, it's a full fat Half-Life game, which, if it had Gordon Freeman in it, would pretty much be HL3.

I'm not entirely sure that VR head crabs and ceiling tentacles are going to be good for my nerves. The giant spiders in Skyrim VR didn't do wonders for me.

Curious Droid also made a video comparing the Spanish Flu with the Corona Virus.
There are probably tons of videos out there, but I want to highlight this channel which I am following for it's normal content regarding spaceflight, airplanes, military equipment and other "odd science" stuff:

Kordanor said:

So Dax ended today on about 11%, Dow Jones is at 8.5%
Kinda makes you think "It's all over now, you can go home"…if you weren't home already.

I still expect it to drop by quite a bit as soon as the big spike hits the US.

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I'm actually a little disappointed by the surge in the market today because some of the stocks I'm watching were getting close to must-buy prices, and I'm sitting on cash waiting to load up.

I feel bad talking about money at a time like this, but this recession is probably going to make me a significant amount of profit in the long term. I just hope the majority are able to come out of this ok.

Well...as long as you don't get into shorting and betting / hoping everything goes to shit to make a huge profit out of it, I think it's morally fine.

Kordanor said:

Well…as long as you don't get into shorting and betting / hoping everything goes to shit to make a huge profit out of it, I think it's morally fine.

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It would be foolish to short at this point because no one knows where the bottom is, and it's going to rebound hard and fast when it does.

Now if I had a time machine...

With that we are drifting into politics again though.

Yes, not that I disagree with you Alrik, but I see they've set up a political coronavirus thread in P&R. I guess we can't help but touch on politics to some degree here, as discussions about responses and strategies have that element, but I think it would be good to try and keep this thread to news about developments, moral support, how people are coping, and so on.

Removed Alrik's post and given an infraction. There have been sufficient warnings.

lackblogger said:

At this moment in time nothing is more important than trying to save as many lives as possible, and rightly so, but I do hope someone has properly weighed the benefits and drawbacks of any potential long-term downturns. Perhaps the long-game might well involve preparing people to make the tough call and admit the currently unthinkable, that some people are just too close to death already to be 'worth' sacrificing everything else for.

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Self inflicted greater good.

The discrepancy in lethality was known before the virus came to shores. China provided data.
Quite a lot of tension going on between economic competitiveness and conservation of life.
A knowledge not put to use: the virus discriminates according to age.
Fighting a discrimination by discriminating is out of the scope, two wrongs do not make one right.

Discriminating elder people by requesting they stay at home very early, by focusing on withdrawing them from virus exposure before the rest of the population would have been some sort of reverse racism.

Most elder people are pensioners, the drain on the economy would have been less than larger containment measures.

Concentration of wealth makes it so that stores are owned by large groups they could have been publically invited to organize schedules in the morning when the viral charge is expected to be lower for elder people etc

In the meantime, segments of population that are known to be resilient to the virus could have joined forces to ensure an efficient insulation from the virus for the elder ones.

Instead of having this massive lockdown, more gradual ways could have been set in motion by discriminating people as the virus discriminates.

As a result of a failure to coerce properly people, when this crisis maybe is at its first 1/6th, an essentiel segment of population is put in conditions of failure, people involved in healthcare instead of getting up to save lifes, get up to determine if it is within their means to save lifes based on their patients condition. They must determine who lives and who dies.

Only 1/6 in, already a situation of systemic failure, it is going to be a rough ride.

One thing to remember: fighting a discriminating virus by discriminating is wrong. It does not work. Every human being in lock down except those who are not in lock down.