Coronavirus Numbers

[+ purplekow]

One death that (maybe) could have been avoided:

 

Coronavirus patient dead after medical residents set ventilator too high

 

A New York coronavirus patient died after inexperienced medical residents rushed to the front line of the pandemic set her ventilator too high, according to a report.

 

The patient, who was in her 60s, was being cared for on an overnight shift at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx last month by family medicine residents, who were not properly trained in how to use the respiratory support machine, according to the Wall Street Journal.

 

Medical residents are doctors-in-training who have graduated from medical school but are training for a specialty under the supervision of a senior physician. As family medicine residents, the young doctors typically wouldn’t work in an intensive care unit on critically ill patients — but as hospitals became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, they were thrust into roles they weren’t prepared for.

 

So when the patient’s illness worsened dramatically overnight and the residents hooked her up to a ventilator, they accidentally turned the device up too high — stopping her heart, according to the paper.

 

When a critical care physician rushed to the room, the doctors-in-training admitted they didn’t know how to properly work the settings on the ventilator.

 

The disturbing incident is just one of several reported by the Wall Street Journal. Other residents — such as those training to be dentists, ophthalmologists, podiatrists and psychiatrists — have also been pushed to the front line because the city’s doctors are stretched desperately thin.

 

At Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, anesthesiology residents were sent to work as respiratory therapists — a licensed job that requires at least two years of training — after just one Zoom session and a Google document that instructed them to call an attending physician if they needed help, according to the paper.

 

And at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, a resident admitted to being afraid that patients were being treated like “guinea pigs.”

 

Hospital officials contacted by the paper said the coronavirus crisis has created extraordinary conditions for all staff members, prompting an all-hands-on-deck response.

 

“Our mission is to save lives, and our heroic health care workers are on the front lines … navigating unprecedented challenges under enormous pressure,” a spokesperson for the institution formally known as NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center told the Wall Street Journal.

 

“We are constantly working to give them the support and resources they need.”

 

Montefiore Medical Center didn’t return a request for comment, according to the paper.

 

MORE ON: CORONAVIRUS

 

Soccer diehards fill empty stadium with cardboard-cutouts of fans

I think the big red headline went overboard. I am not sure I this post was written by someone else and is being quoted or if it is the work of the poster. I am assuming that this is a quoted article and not one done by the poster.

There are so many questions raised by that article that go unanswered, I am inclined to think the reporting is fairly shabby. Quoting an unknown resident saying people are being treated like guinea pigs is inflammatory. Many drugs are being used based on anecdotal data and without FDA approval. Technically, these drugs, including Plaquenyl which was widely extolled politically and in the media and which now has been widely discredited is one example. The reason that drug was used was based on anecdotal data and in that sense anyone who received the drug was part of an experimental trial. (So if you care to use the term guinea pigs to describe those people than there were thousands of people treated like guinea pigs).

As for, and I am paraphrasing, residents hooking a patient up to a ventilator and setting the values too high, stopping her heart. This seems very unlikely. First, family practice residents especially inexperienced one, even under these conditions, do not hook patients up to a respirator. That would fall to the respiratory therapist or others with familiarity with controls and who would have been given doctors orders as to the settings for the respirator. A nurse who would also be following a doctor's orders about the settings may make changes once the ventilator has been initiated. It is certainly possible that the resident had given orders which were incorrect and that resulted in the delivery of the oxygen, but even under the dire circumstances that were going on in NYC, an inexperienced family practice resident would not be given that responsibility, nor would they be having hands on involvement in the physical changing of the settings.

As to anesthesiology residents working as respiratory therapists, the anesthesiology residents, as part o their routine job work with ventilators in the operating room. There are aspects of the job of a respiratory therapist, specifically the actually therapeutic aspects which might be foreign to an anesthesiology resident, but the settings on a ventilator would be very familiar to them. I was a respiratory therapist before going to medical school. At the time, a degree in respiratory therapy was not required in NYC, though shortly after I started it was a new regulation. I had on the job training for two weeks and then worked nights alone at a large city hospital. There are certainly aspects of the job that could endanger a persons life if done incorrectly, I have difficulty seeing an error as egregious as one which would cost someone their life before anyone could intervene as even a remote possibility.

 

Barotrauma, damage to the lungs including collapsing of a lung is a well established complication of being on a ventilator. CoVid patients seem to be suffering a larger percentage of this kind of lung damage. This is likely secondary to the trauma caused by the disease itself weakening the integrity of the lung and having the lung less capable of withstanding the pressures used to insure proper delivery of respiratory volume.

 

So, while this article may have a basis in fact, the details seem shady and incomplete and as a result the article, for me, is misleading. Just to be clear, there are lots of people doing jobs that they have not done in the past, but that is not equivalent to those jobs being done by persons who are unsupervised and unqualified.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Has anybody ever heard of a virus where - if I become infected - I become an Australian?

 

I love these people. They are doing it right.

 

Coronavirus recovery: ACT becomes first state or territory to be free of known cases of COVID-19

 

 

After a total of 106 diagnoses and three deaths in the ACT, Jan Stoop has become the last Canberran to recover from coronavirus.

 

"I really struggled with fever … I went through three t-shirts a night," Mr Stoop added.

 

Though it was difficult for the pair, the Stoops said the silver lining was that ACT Health called every day to support them, and their local community pitched in to help.

 

"Everybody just jumped in and supported us," Ms Stoop said.

 

Australia

Coronavirus Cases:

6,766

Deaths:

93

Recovered:

5,739

[+ stevenkesslar]

Reports of spousal abuse and child sexual abuse are on the up trend during the quarantine. Mental health problems need abating. Loss of education for young children will be hard to make up. There is starting to be a big toll beyond just the economic one.

 

This requires a difficult balancing of different interests. A multivariate analysis is needed rather than the single-variable analysis of some posters.

 

Society can not be put on hold until a vaccine is developed, if ever.

 

There are some great multivariate analyses that were done about how this worked in 1918.

 

The lesson is basically that we can improve economic activity and schooling of children by reducing social distancing.

 

The multivariate outcome is that you have less loss of education, and less domestic abuse. All good outcomes. It makes common sense. People need to get out of the house.

 

You do have more parent death and more spouse death as the infection rate skyrockets.

 

Personally, in terms of a richer multivariate view, I think having an orphaned child and a dead wife is better than having a kid who can't go to school and a nagging wife who won't work.

 

We shouldn't be stuck on simplistic notions like social distancing and closing down businesses unnecessarily. We could have better and richer multivariate outcomes, like this:

 

My mother, the Spanish flu orphan

Edited May 1, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Guest]

...

What do you suggest for those over 65 or in other high risk groups?

I would suggest that those 65 and over, especially if you are obese, have asthma, COPD, diabetes, or other significant comorbidities be especially cautious to avoid contact with anyone who doesn't have full recovery with antibodies to Covid-19. Those people should definitely not travel until vaccinated, or if there's some super-effective treatment available. Remdesivir has some efficacy, but it's not exactly a miracle drug.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-shows-remdesivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19

"Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059)."

Yea, 8% is better than 11.6%, but the improvement isn't that fantastic.

I think no one is proposing a lock down until we have a vaccine. The talk is about not being back to normal until the vaccine is found, which is not the same.

 

Although the lock down is the most effective prevention against the spread of the virus, it is just not sustainable beyond a couple of months. Besides not being economically sustainable, it is psychologically impossible.

Well, California Governor Newsom has announced (and sent to all our phones) an announcement that the lockdown will continue at least until June 1st, which will be 2.5 months. Our health care system has not at all been overwhelmed. In fact, we sent several dozen ventilators to NYC.

 

But there's no question that seniors need special protection.

[+ stevenkesslar]

What do you suggest for those over 65 or in other high risk groups?

 

Two possibilities.

 

If I find the virus that turns me into an Australian, I'll share it with you. That would be the easiest solution. We can just move to Canberra.

 

The other solution is we have to find a way to do what pretty much every other country in the world has done, including Australia. Which is reduce the number of cases per day. And that gets to be a challenge, particularly in the US.

 

There seems to be a pretty clear trend, in terms of the countries that I would call the "Let's Try To Contain The Virus " countries. The US is not one of them.

 

There's a half dozen or so that never had many more than 1000 new cases in one day. And pretty much every one of them now has only a handful of cases a day. All of them have done a standard protocol of steps: social distancing, masks, etc. But at least some of them have been able to maintain substantial levels of economic activity beyond what we are calling "essential". As well as various levels of schooling. The big thing that took a hit across the board are mass gatherings - stadiums, entertainment, beaches, marches, etc. Although in South Korea the cinemas are open. It's just that, for now, people don't feel very safe going to them. And the other common trend is testing, testing, testing - and lots of it. Alphabetically: Australia, Austria, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand. Israel is an interesting example because they mostly belong in this group, but they have a specific subpopulation - orthodox Jews - who just are not as happy with the rules: they tend to be big families for whom physically close group worship is a priority. So Israel has it under control, but with over 100 new infections a day rather than just a handful. And that seems to be the reason why.

 

There's now a second tier that had much higher levels of infections - like over 5000 a day - and are now on a substantial down slope. So they are mostly the European "extreme lock down" countries where they had pretty harsh enforcement - like fines if you broke the rules. Another country in this category is China, which was way more draconian. But the harshness paid off in the sense that much bigger outbreaks have been cut by roughly a half to two thirds. France is the best example. They went from a one day peak of over 17,000 new cases - which I think is the day they reported a lot of nursing home infections - to a low of only about 500 new cases a day two days ago. So Italy, Germany, Spain, the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands, plus Canada and Iran are all somewhere in the ballpark of 1000 - 2000 new cases a day. For most of those countries that is a massive decline from the beginning of April. So on the one hand, the lock downs led to huge reduction in new infections and deaths. On the other hand, these countries are now about where the first tier countries were at on their WORST day. The question is can they reopen without having things get worse again? Or, can they reopen and get the caseloads down to a handful a day like the first tier countries? We don't know. I'm pretty sure "test, trace, treat" is a core strategy for all of them to try to continue the declines. But it is not clear how much each country has that in place yet.

 

And then there is the US. We are stuck at about 30,000 new cases a day. So we are definitely the global outlier. There's no indication that that number is headed down. Most experts are saying that as the economy "reopens", the number of cases will go up - until the skyrocketing number of cases and deaths and outbreak clusters at this factory or that meat packing plant lead to more closures. So we're just in this dead zone - sort of literally. And at these kind of absolute numbers - 30,000 confirmed cases a day, which probably means maybe up to several hundred thousand actual new infections a day - there's no feasible way to try to do test, or, trace, or treat effectively, really. So that leaves you your crashing hospital strategy. Talk to @purplekow about that. It's really just a matter of how many people you can cram in a hospital. And how long it takes for it to be like that in most hospitals.

 

As far as your specific situation goes, with 65 year old people and high risk types, I was personally hoping Sweden would be of some help. They are the one country that set about to let the virus move about in a somewhat restrained way, and then focus on keeping seniors alive. That didn't work so well. A third of those that died were seniors in nursing homes. So the brilliant guy who came up with that idea said it hasn't worked so well, and they are trying to fix it. But for now I'd recommend Norway or Finland, until Sweden figures out how to have safe nursing homes in the middle of a raging pandemic. And, frankly, I think that one could take a while to problem solve. And everywhere else - forget it. As we all know, deaths among the old are through the roof.

 

Then you've got to factor in your "I'm A White Rat In A Maze And I Am So Fucking Confused" model. Which maybe is sort of the US model. Visually, this gives you a view of the multivariate distribution of key components:

 

 

Now this is a highly complex multivariate model, as is obvious from the image above. So we factor in things like your spousal abuse, your lack of education, your school lunches, your child poverty, and what not. So unlike these sort of slacker countries in the first tier, like Australia or those Asian wannabes, we are factoring in more complex things like our concern for children's education and health:

The teacher is not hopeful someone else will intervene. She knows that while professionals like her do the most reporting, families do much less: Roughly 16 percent of the abuse reports made in 2018 came from family and other people close to the victims.

 

That’s because family are usually the abusers. In 2018, nearly 80 percent of perpetrators were parents of the victim. That year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated 1,770 children died of abuse and neglect.

 

So this is where it gets super cool and compassionate. So in the US yesterday we had 2,201 COVID-19 deaths. So we factor in that keeping people pent up leads to more child neglect. That leads to a 20 percent increase, which is over 2,000 kids dying a year from abuse or neglect. So by reopening, we stop that marginal increase in neglect and abuse. Now, from the reduction in bad stuff- like keeping kids at home - we factor in a 20 percent increase in infections and COVID-19 deaths. That gives you approximately 2,600 deaths a day. So when you look at this from a multivariate perspective, it is obviously a lot better. Because you can prevent 300 more kids dying every year by having 2600 deaths a day - pretty much none of whom are kids. So that is your basic multivariate model at work for the common good. Pretty cool, huh?

 

Frankly, a lot of these slacker countries in the first tier aren't very good at multivariate thinking. They focused on this very simplistic idea that by using lock downs and "test, trace, treat" effectively to get national infections down to a handful a day, they could just have schools and businesses open. Fortunately, here in the US, we're able to make things a lot more complicated than that. Pretty cool, huh?

 

Now, all of that was sort of by way of springing the bad news on you, in terms of your personal situation. The multivariate model works out to about 500,000 to 2 million US deaths, what with your 0.67 % death rate, and a broad range of multivariate infection spread. And that pretty much is concentrated on your older than 65 group. And that whole Stockholm getaway just isn't looking as promising as we'd hoped. So that kind of gets us back to the "I'm A White Rat In A Maze And I Am So Fucking Confused" model.

 

There is good news. The way those first tier slacker countries are thinking about it is that in order to get people to fly, you have to make it so that almost nobody dies on airplanes. So here in the US, with our more balanced and harmonic multivariate approach, I'm figuring after reopening we are only talking 3000 to 5000 COVID-19 deaths a day. So imagine it this way. If only 3000 to 5000 people died each day in plane crashes, you'd feel safe to fly, right?

 

So from a multivariate perspective, people over 65 in high risk groups should be just fine.

 

Glad I could help work this one out for you.

Edited May 1, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

One other exercise in coronavirus numbers.

 

The death is starting to get emotionally exhausting. But part of the emotional exhaustion is that I keep reading these articles that boil down to this: "What death? There's no death."

 

Some of it is politics, so I'll save it for a different forum. But some of it is what appears to just be really dumb math skills on the part of really smart people.

 

Here's an example from Joe Nocera, a Bloomberg writer and co-author of one of my favorite books, All The Devils Are Here:

I don’t agree with every claim the critics make. Some go so far as to dismiss the value of social distancing, the importance of which has become pretty clear since the coronavirus was first identified. But I believe it’s always worth listening to smart people with ideas that go against the grain.

 

We’re still acting as if the original models were correct. In mid-March, a team at Imperial College in London estimated that 500,000 British citizens and 2.2 million Americans would die from an uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus. That estimate caused the US and UK governments to begin stressing self-isolation measures, according to the New York Times. In the U.S., state after state shut down their economies while a mad scramble took place to create hospital space for Covid-19 patients.

Since then, the major models have been revised downward significantly. According to data compiled by the Reich Lab at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, models now estimate 67,000 to 120,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. Yet strict measures like lockdowns, which were put in place based on the original modeling, remain in place, while hospitals around the country, many of which are largely empty, continued to be reserved for nonexistent Covid-19 patients.

 

This one really perplexes me. It is true that if we are all lemmings, and we don't all jump off the cliff, we won't all die.

 

 

The idea that we will all die is based on this original model: "If we all jump off the cliff, we will all die." The fact that we chose not to jump off the cliff and die does not make the model wrong. If we had jumped off the cliff, maybe we would have died. Am I missing something?

 

So the idea that the lock downs may be unnecessary is based on some model of an alternative reality that never happened. But I think we're now at a point where we can make some intelligent guesses about what that alternative reality would have looked like, based on what actually did happen.

 

We know in New York state there have been 23,780 deaths. We know that antibody testing suggests that 14 % of New Yorkers are infected. The alternative reality that is often posited is that if we had just let the virus run its course, the healthy 70 % of the population would get infected and recover. Pretty much no sweat. This whole pandemic thing would just be a tiny little bump in the road, soon to disappear in the rear view mirror.

 

The biggest problem with this theory is that in the one country that championed it, it hasn't worked. One third of the deaths in Sweden were seniors in nursing homes. So if we are coming up with a reality-based model for how letting the virus spread would work, I'm leaving off the idea that seniors can be safely bubble wrapped for a year or two. I just don't find it realistic.

 

So to get from 14 % infection to 70 % infection in New York, I'm doing simple math. 5 times more infection will lead to 5 times more death. So New York tops out at 118,900 dead. Again, that's assuming 14 % have been infected, and 70 % will be if we let the virus do its work. So I took the actual number of dead in New York and multiplied by five.

 

New York is 20 million Americans out of a total US population of 330 million, or about 6 % of all Americans. So if we assume the same rate of infection nationwide, 70 %, you end up with 1,961,850 deaths in the US. Again, that's just taking the actual deaths in New York, adding the additional New York deaths needed to get to 70 % infection, and multiplying it out over the country.

 

The Imperial College model suggested 2.2 million Americans would die. That was before the wave of death even started in New York. Seems like they were pretty close to me. Am I missing something? If we just let what was playing out in New York continue, and do the same in the whole US, is there a reason to expect things to have played out differently?

 

Nocera notes that the estimate was "revised downward significantly" and now we get 67,000 to 120,000 deaths. That's like saying the numbers of lemmings that would die from jumping off the cliff was "revised downward significantly" because they all decided not to jump. What changed wasn't the model. What changed was the behavior the model assumed - no social distancing or other mitigation.

 

By the way, since I am using New York as my model base, it does work out that in New York and the US you would end up with a death rate of 0.6 % of all those infected. That's 2 million out of 330 million. That's at the low end of the range of death rates most epidemiologists have been projecting. So there's every reason to have confidence that if we let the virus infect 70 % of all Americans, 2 million of us will die.

 

I think 2 million is a useful number to consider, because you can then fold it back in to the kind of multivariate analysis some posters prefer.

 

Example:

Reports of spousal abuse and child sexual abuse are on the up trend during the quarantine. Mental health problems need abating. Loss of education for young children will be hard to make up. There is starting to be a big toll beyond just the economic one.

 

So we can say that an estimated 1770 children die in the US each year from abuse and neglect. We can say that this is a horrible thing, and that any increase above 1770 would be more horrible. We can then calculate we can have no lock down, and therefore no additional emotional stress leading to child death from abuse and neglect. We can calculate this would only require 2 million COVID-19 deaths nationally.

 

That gives us a sense of the multivariate trade offs, so we can achieve what Tom Friedman calls "harmony". Then again, we might want to factor in that 2 million COVID-19 deaths might not be quite that harmonious. Mass death could lead to a certain amount of emotional stress. That could, in turn, lead to more child abuse and neglect. So it does get complicated.

 

Lucky for me, I suck at numbers. But I do think that the people who calculated that 2 million Americans will die from COVID-19 if we just let it run its course are pretty fucking smart.

Edited May 1, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ José Soplanucas]

I am not sure what the solution is for “older” people like myself (I am 74) or with other conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, obesity and others in high risk groups targeted by the virus.

 

If I venture out and get the virus and need hospitalization, there is no medical therapy beyond “supportive therapy” which means they just support my body as my own immune system fights the virus with things like a ventilator. Unless the Gilead drug (or something else) works as a medical therapy, I am in a group that is at high risk with really not much to help if I need hospitalization.

 

Even massive test-trace-treat is not valid for the high risk groups because there really is no “treat”. When a medical therapy is available, then OK. A vaccine is still a long way off.

 

How do I board an airplane? Will everyone be given an Abbott 5-minute test before being allowed to board? Will I be sitting next to an asymptotic carrier? How do I go into a movie theater and sit next to someone? Does the person behind the refreshment stand counter hand me a virus with the popcorn?

 

Now Denmark is opening up BUT not for those over 65. Those over 65 are still sheltering in place.

 

What do you suggest for those over 65 or in other high risk groups?

 

I do not know, my friend.

[+ stevenkesslar]

"until there's a universal availability of a safe and effective vaccine" seems to be the mantra of those who urge extending lockdown

 

Who says that?

 

I've never heard that.

 

What I've heard Fauci and Birx describe as a "gateway" is that a state (or maybe a city) should have a consistent 14 day decline in infections, as well as capacity to manage a fatal pandemic that has killed over 60,000 Americans with widespread testing and tracing.

 

Fauci has repeatedly said we need to have more - like double or triple - the amount of testing available in order to reopen safely.

 

Neither Fauci nor Birx has specifically elaborated on the number of contact tracers needed. The number 300,000 nationally is used by a lot of modelers. Fauci and Birx mostly talk about the urgent need for contact tracers, even if they don't put a specific number on it. What they do talk about is that absent such testing and tracing we are sure to have outbreaks in prisons, meat packing plants, factories, and similar places with high concentrations of people. He says with testing they can be caught early. Without it, they will break out into the general population and you'll have a New York City , or a Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Meaning mass infection, a lot of death, shut down. Sort of really bad shit for the economy, you know?

 

Could you please share with us these people saying lock downs need to be extended until there is "universal availability of a safe and effective vaccine". I've never heard that. I'd like to hear their argument.

 

Are you saying Fauci and Birx are wrong? Are you saying their 14 day gateway concept is wrong? Because no state has actually met that standard, to my knowledge. We're stuck nationally at about 30,000 new confirmed infections and typically over 2000 deaths a day.

Edited May 1, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ José Soplanucas]

I would suggest that those 65 and over, especially if you are obese, have asthma, COPD, diabetes, or other significant comorbidities be especially cautious to avoid contact with anyone who doesn't have full recovery with antibodies to Covid-19. Those people should definitely not travel until vaccinated, or if there's some super-effective treatment available. Remdesivir has some efficacy, but it's not exactly a miracle drug.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-shows-remdesivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19

"Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059)."

Yea, 8% is better than 11.6%, but the improvement isn't that fantastic.

 

Well, California Governor Newsom has announced (and sent to all our phones) an announcement that the lockdown will continue at least until June 1st, which will be 2.5 months. Our health care system has not at all been overwhelmed. In fact, we sent several dozen ventilators to NYC.

 

But there's no question that seniors need special protection.

 

I think he is doing the right thing. Pushing for the quarantine to stay for as long as possible, even if he may be risking his political capital.

 

Please, do not take my testimony as advocacy against physical isolation. I am rather sharing how I am experiencing the dilemma we all are going through. By venting here, I also hope I will be releasing stress and buying motivation to keep going longer than I think I am able to.

[mike carey]

This morning there was an item on the news that Australia had suffered one more Covid-19 death, taking the total to 93. It was just reported in a matter of fact way, not as a way to make some other point about the pandemic. It was remarkable in a few ways. There was no tone of celebration that it was good. When numbers in other countries are so horrifying, even a single death was being dignified by being reported. The fact that people are still dying [and catching the disease] even though in small numbers, and it's being acknowledged helps emphasise that we are not at the stage of 'mission accomplished' yet.

[+ Charlie]

I had a telemedicine appointment with my doctor on Monday, and he wanted me to get lab tests and a CT scan for a condition I have been experiencing. He said it would be easy, because no one was going to Quest for routine tests or the imaging center at the hospital for routine scans. He was right about Quest: there were only 3 other people there when I went. But it took two days for the imaging center to call me, and they said the earliest date they could schedule the scan was May 20! I suspect that it is so quiet that they have furloughed most of their employees and are only keeping the center open for the few emergency scans each day.

 

One of the things I don't see mentioned is that the seniors who are getting infected and dying in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are already in lockdown, and were there before anyone else, which is why they contracted the virus from workers and visitors and then spread it to one another. The same is true of prisoners. The best advice I can give those over 65 is to do whatever is necessary to avoid having to go into a communal living situation, and don't do anything that would get you sent to jail.

[+ bigjoey]

Great news?:

https://apple.news/ApbPFgW2URz6Ku1-xaAYolg

 

I read that to say unless there is a vaccine, we are heading towards herd immunity to end the pandemic.

 

The other thing we need is a medical therapy that is effective in treating those who need hospitalization. That would cut the death rate.

 

In the meantime, no hugs got granny in a senior facility?.

[+ bigjoey]

One of the things I don't see mentioned is that the seniors who are getting infected and dying in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are already in lockdown, and were there before anyone else, which is why they contracted the virus from workers and visitors and then spread it to one another. The same is true of prisoners. The best advice I can give those over 65 is to do whatever is necessary to avoid having to go into a communal living situation, and don't do anything that would get you sent to jail.

 

In NY, nursing homes got the virus not only from visitors or staff but from residents coming back from hospitals due to government stupidity:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/new-york-lacked-common-sense-in-nursing-homes-coronavirus-approach/

Hopefully, that is a lesson learned at the cost of many lives.

 

The problem with not moving to an assisted living or skilled nursing facility is that most often it is not really a matter of choice but necessity. Unless some seniors can move in with a relative who will assume the tasks of care or can afford full time caretakers, a senior facility is the only choice.

 

Until there is a vaccine or herd immunity, senior facilities will have to continually test staff each day (with temperature readings at a minimum). Any visitors will need to be tested with a fast result test like the Abbott test.

 

At least going to jail, there should not be a visitor problem if the visitor is kept behind a glass window?

Edited May 1, 2020 by bigjoey

[+ bigjoey]

There are some great multivariate analyses that were done about how this worked in 1918.

 

The lesson is basically that we can improve economic activity and schooling of children by reducing social distancing.

 

The multivariate outcome is that you have less loss of education, and less domestic abuse. All good outcomes. It makes common sense. People need to get out of the house.

 

You do have more parent death and more spouse death as the infection rate skyrockets.

 

Personally, in terms of a richer multivariate view, I think having an orphaned child and a dead wife is better than having a kid who can't go to school and a nagging wife who won't work.

 

We shouldn't be stuck on simplistic notions like social distancing and closing down businesses unnecessarily. We could have better and richer multivariate outcomes, like this:

 

My mother, the Spanish flu orphan

 

The multivariate analysis takes in more than the death rate. Unfortunately, life requires balancing all types of things and making choices.

 

For example, we average just below 40,000 deaths per year from automobile accidents plus tens of thousands of serious injuries (many permanent). If we lowered highway speed limits to 30 miles per hours, you would see a significant drop in deaths and injuries. Our society has decided to make a trade off between deaths and injuries and having a 65 mile per hour speed limit on most highways. (There are other variables to cut deaths like adding air bags or seat belts but I am just showing the speed variable for simplicity). Here society is balancing time of travel with deaths. We accept tens of thousands of dead and injured in a value balance with time saved in travel.

[+ tassojunior]

In NY, nursing homes got the virus not only from visitors or staff but from residents coming back from hospitals due to government stupidity:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/new-york-lacked-common-sense-in-nursing-homes-coronavirus-approach/

Hopefully, that is a lesson learned at the cost of many lives.

 

The program with not moving to an assisted living or skilled nursing facility is that most often it is not really a matter of choice but necessity. Unless some seniors can move in with a relative who will assume the tasks of care or can afford full time caretakers, a senior facility is the only choice.

 

Until there is a vaccine or herd immunity, senior facilities will have to continually test staff each day (with temperature readings at a minimum). Any visitors will need to be tested with a fast result test like the Abbott test.

 

At least going to jail, there should not be a visitor problem if the visitor is kept behind a glass window?

 

One of Bernie's proposals was to pay for home assistance and care to age in place. People who owned their home would not have to sell it and go to a facility for long term care. That way they would have the best care possible in their own homes. That method would have saved many lives in this pandemic too.

Edited May 2, 2020 by tassojunior

[Guest]

 

Lucky for me, I suck at numbers. But I do think that the people who calculated that 2 million Americans will die from COVID-19 if we just let it run its course are pretty fucking smart.

 

The best way for people not to die unnecessarily is to make sure our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. If we have to ration healthcare to the healthier population because of inadequate resources (ventilators, hospital beds), then there will be unnecessary deaths. Unfortunately, there's a good chance most people will get infected at some point before a vaccine becomes available, if one ever does become available. The idea of flattening the curve is to avoid large numbers of people contracting it around the same time. Even if we flatten out the curve successfully, the total number of people getting Covid-19 may be the same (just spread out over time). Australia may be a different case, since their caseload is so low, that they could conceivably stamp it out completely until there's a vaccine, if they don't let anyone onto the continent who hasn't been tested and vetted (one can test for the virus in a matter of minutes, so one could test every single person prior to boarding the plane or ship headed to the continent).

[+ purplekow]

While I do think the availability of rapid testing is essential to getting this under control, as far as I am aware, the quickest test takes about an hour. Perhaps I am only dealing with hospital available tests and regulations that are done for the testing to take place in the hospital at which I work. I am sincerely asking if there are tests at this time that are readily available which can be done in minutes.

Robert Wood Johnson Rutgers, the University System for which I work has a saliva test undergoing testing but it is not readily available to associated hospitals here in NJ. By doing a saliva test, that takes away the need for the nasal swab, which when done here in the ER, requires someone with an N95 mask and a negative flow room. Though the test may take less than an hour, the rigamarole to do it and get it to the lab and back brings the time from entry to discharge to more than 2 hours. Saliva test, if it works, would cut the time in half or even less time than that.

[samhexum]

Florida curtails reporting of coronavirus death numbers by county medical examiners

 

Yahoo News DAVID KNOWLES May 1st 2020 3:12PM

 

Florida health officials have halted the publication of up-to-the-minute death statistics related to the coronavirus pandemic that have, by law, been compiled by medical examiners in the state.

 

The death count compiled by the Medical Examiners Commission was often found to be higher than the figures provided by Florida’s Department of Health, the Tampa Bay Times reported, prompting a review of the data and a suspension of its publication.

 

State officials have not specified what they find objectionable about the medical examiners’ count, nor when they might allow it to be made public again, the Times said.

 

According to the state Department of Health, 34,728 people have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 1,337 people have died from it, as of Friday morning.

 

Dr. Stephen Nelson, chairman of the state Medical Examiners Commission, told the Tampa Bay Times that state officials informed him that they would remove the cause of death and a description of each case from statistics published by the examiners.

 

“This is no different than any other public record we deal with,” Nelson said. “It’s paid for by taxpayer dollars and the taxpayers have a right to know.”

 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that the state would begin lifting coronavirus restrictions for some businesses everywhere but Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, which have been particularly hard-hit by the virus.

 

“These counties have seen the lion’s share of the state’s epidemic,” DeSantis said Wednesday, “but they are trending in a positive direction.”

 

The day before DeSantis’s order, Florida reported 83 deaths from COVID-19, the highest number to date. On Friday, the state reported another 47 deaths and 1,038 new cases of COVID-19.

 

Fewer than 2 percent of Florida’s 21.5 million residents have been tested for the virus, the Miami Herald reported on Friday. Of residents who have been tested, 9 percent have come back positive for the virus, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

[samhexum]

Florida curtails reporting of coronavirus death numbers by county medical examiners

 

Yahoo News DAVID KNOWLES May 1st 2020 3:12PM

 

Florida health officials have halted the publication of up-to-the-minute death statistics related to the coronavirus pandemic that have, by law, been compiled by medical examiners in the state.

 

The death count compiled by the Medical Examiners Commission was often found to be higher than the figures provided by Florida’s Department of Health, the Tampa Bay Times reported, prompting a review of the data and a suspension of its publication.

 

State officials have not specified what they find objectionable about the medical examiners’ count, nor when they might allow it to be made public again, the Times said.

 

According to the state Department of Health, 34,728 people have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 1,337 people have died from it, as of Friday morning.

 

Dr. Stephen Nelson, chairman of the state Medical Examiners Commission, told the Tampa Bay Times that state officials informed him that they would remove the cause of death and a description of each case from statistics published by the examiners.

 

“This is no different than any other public record we deal with,” Nelson said. “It’s paid for by taxpayer dollars and the taxpayers have a right to know.”

 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that the state would begin lifting coronavirus restrictions for some businesses everywhere but Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, which have been particularly hard-hit by the virus.

 

“These counties have seen the lion’s share of the state’s epidemic,” DeSantis said Wednesday, “but they are trending in a positive direction.”

 

The day before DeSantis’s order, Florida reported 83 deaths from COVID-19, the highest number to date. On Friday, the state reported another 47 deaths and 1,038 new cases of COVID-19.

 

Fewer than 2 percent of Florida’s 21.5 million residents have been tested for the virus, the Miami Herald reported on Friday. Of residents who have been tested, 9 percent have come back positive for the virus, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

[+ purplekow]

Wow. This is amazing. A coverup or at the very least interference with the public's right to know. Someone should sue, preferably a relative of someone who died of Coronavirus.

[+ purplekow]

Wow. This is amazing. A coverup or at the very least interference with the public's right to know. Someone should sue, preferably a relative of someone who died of Coronavirus.

[+ stevenkesslar]

The multivariate analysis takes in more than the death rate. Unfortunately, life requires balancing all types of things and making choices.

 

We agree. We're making a similar point, except using different language.

 

My point boils down to a simple number: 2 million dead. That's a hell of a lot more than the 40,000 traffic deaths you cited. So one way to think about any multivariate equation with COVID-19 is this: 2 million dead is probably a hell of a lot more than "x".

 

So, "x" could be "mass closure of small businesses". I'm essentially a small business as a landlord. So I'm sympathetic. If you play it out, I'd actually have to kill my tenants. If I can't pay mortgages or bills, I get foreclosed on, they get evicted, and they die. It sucks for everybody. That's extreme, of course. But if the idea is that closing small businesses sucks, I completely agree.

 

A true multivariate model would factor in the impact of 2 million deaths on small business closures. So you can say it's a horrible thing that we had to close down South Dakota because of people dying in New York. But then Dr. Birx will say, "Uh, New York had zero cases in February 2020." As if to prove her point, in almost no time Sioux Falls, South Dakota has thousands of cases, a dozen deaths, and a closed meat packing plant.

 

We don't even need to model the multivariate impact of mass death on small business closures. We already know what will happen from history. We are going to have complete economic and social collapse. And note my verb tense. This is going to happen. It is now unavoidable in the US. We are going to have complete economic and social collapse. We do not need to model it. We just need to watch what happens - assuming 99 % of us are lucky enough to survive.

 

Why do I say that?

 

First, we know from 1918 that there was complete economic an social collapse. To the degree that chambers of commerce pushed the idea that the economy came first, it resulted in the most devastating possible economic collapse - every single time. It's a stunningly simple idea, actually.

 

 

When you are at the 1918 parade in Philadelphia, people just didn't consider the possibly that a month from now they would be dead. But they were. It's human nature, I guess. All it takes is one bullet. That's how the virus works. For whatever reason, people just seem to underestimate the devastating impact of those bullets - or viral particles.

 

The tell to me is that all these herd immunity arguments never address any detail of how we achieve the "harmonious balance" they aspire to. There's this vague concept, like you state, that life involves choices, and we need a "multivariate analysis". The word sounds good. If a multivariate analysis gives us harmonious balance, that must be a good thing.

 

So if 20 % of the NYPD is out sick, how does that work? If 10 % of your workforce is hospitalized, and 1 % die, how does that work? If one-third of the dead are seniors in nursing homes - even in Sweden - how does that work? Those are variables. These are all things that just happened in the real world. So take that and say that we're at "only" 60,000 deaths. So to get to 2 million, we need it to be 33 times worse than what we just went through. When I read @purplekow's posts, it makes it very understandable to me that either as individuals, or collectively, we find it very difficult to imagine that kind of living hell.

 

But that living hell was 1918. And that is where we are now headed, by choice.

 

We seem to be determined to do it our way. We have many perfectly good examples of countries that are doing something very different. And it is working much better than what we are doing. The difference between 30,000 infections a day and 20 is pretty dramatic. The difference between 2000 deaths a day and zero deaths is pretty dramatic. It's actually really amazing to me that so much of what I read does not even state the words "test, trace, treat". Even though that is the mantra of the two most trusted scientists in America right now, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.

 

I have a pretty clear idea of what the problem is. I think it really does boil down to one word: individualism. There are many good things and many bad things about individualism. Where it doesn't work well is when you need something like 100 % herd conformity. That pops up with vaccines, because the idea is that if too many in the herd refuse to vaccinate, it fucks things up for the whole herd.

 

So this is just math, and science. If 20 % of the herd won't conform to the rules that keep the herd safe - which is what the polls tell us - then 100 % of the herd is not safe. Hypothetically, if only 20 % of the herd chose to walk into the slaughterhouse, then only the 20 % of the herd that chose to be slaughtered would die. But in the real world, with a lethal and highly contagious virus, it just doesn't work that way. Of course, this is NOT how the 20 % of the herd that feel fine living with the virus is thinking. But it is the scientific fact.

 

So what is actually working in Australia, Austria, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and arguably some other nations can not and will not work here. The 20 % of the herd that is focused on individualism simply will not allow it. The impact on society will be devastating - economically, politically, and otherwise. But for this forum, I'll just focus on the science of it: in epidemics, 20 % can easily rule. Hell, 1 % can rule. At 1 %, the cat is already out of the bag.

 

So we will have hundreds of thousands of seniors die this year. I think we are headed to 2 million dead. And that will mean complete social and economic collapse. So if you want a multivariate analysis, that's it. Just like in 1918, when you add all the variables together, you get complete economic and social collapse.

 

My mother, the Spanish flu orphan

 

I hyperlinked that article above, but I'll cite one of several reasons I posted it. The author notes, correctly I think, that there is a sort of collective amnesia about 1918. She experienced it in her own family. It cost her grandmother and grandfather their lives. It cost her mother her life, in the sense that her mother never "found herself", in the view of the author, and resorted to lifelong alcoholism. She suggests that was the result of the deep childhood trauma of losing both parents to disease. I've read enough to suggest that, other than specific histories about the 1918 pandemic, it tends to get glossed over in general histories. The specific histories about the pandemic suggest that people who lived through it and survived did not want to talk about it or think about it. Once it ended, the dead were buried and people needed to move on. So all of that smacks of deep and unbearable emotional trauma. So you need to factor that into your multivariate analysis, too. Even the living pay a huge price for mass death.

 

There are two variables that mitigate against the inevitability of 2 million dead Americans and that complete social and economic collapse.

 

One variable is other countries. At some point, people will notice that America has over 65,000 dead. And the worst country on the list I cited above is Austria, with 589 dead. Most of those countries have fewer than 100 dead. Human nature being what it is, at some point a critical mass of people may say, "Geez. Maybe there is some room for improvement here." But we are where we are, and Americans are fine with the horror show so far. I think that the 20 % of the herd that is focused on individualism is a fixed number. So as far as the science of it goes, 20 % is more than a majority when it comes to viral herd slaughter in an epidemic. We're just dead meat. The virus will decide which members of the herd live and die, with doctor likes @purplekow having some influence. But it mostly is the virus's decision if you and I are dead meat or not.

 

The second variable is states. So you can argue that California is like South Korea. Or that Ohio is like Australia. So some states will basically look to Australia and South Korea and many other nations - including China - as models. They will roll out "test, trace, treat", and we will see how it works. They will have outbreaks in this factory or that office building anyway. But they will likely prevent complete economic and social collapse, just like some cities managed to in 1918. Same shit, different century.

 

There are many holes that can be poked in my arguments. I'll cite three. First, maybe it won't be 2 million people. Second, maybe "test, trace, treat" is a false promise. Third, and I'll mention this in my next post, maybe it won't take 70 % infection. The best guess is that in 1918 it stopped at 25 % to 28 % infection of the population. That was a flu virus, but we just don't know for sure. We also don't know for sure that people that have antibodies are immune - or for how long.

 

I'm trying to go on fact, and what we have a pretty clear picture of. Friedman and his "harmonious balance" happy talk just sounds like fantasy-based fiction to me. He can't point to one example of any "harmony" based on facts. His concepts failed completely in Sweden, and the guy who designed the policies admits it. Meanwhile, the track record of US states that locked down early, like Ohio and California, and nations focused on "test, trace, treat" is remarkably clear.

[+ stevenkesslar]

The multivariate analysis takes in more than the death rate. Unfortunately, life requires balancing all types of things and making choices.

 

We agree. We're making a similar point, except using different language.

 

My point boils down to a simple number: 2 million dead. That's a hell of a lot more than the 40,000 traffic deaths you cited. So one way to think about any multivariate equation with COVID-19 is this: 2 million dead is probably a hell of a lot more than "x".

 

So, "x" could be "mass closure of small businesses". I'm essentially a small business as a landlord. So I'm sympathetic. If you play it out, I'd actually have to kill my tenants. If I can't pay mortgages or bills, I get foreclosed on, they get evicted, and they die. It sucks for everybody. That's extreme, of course. But if the idea is that closing small businesses sucks, I completely agree.

 

A true multivariate model would factor in the impact of 2 million deaths on small business closures. So you can say it's a horrible thing that we had to close down South Dakota because of people dying in New York. But then Dr. Birx will say, "Uh, New York had zero cases in February 2020." As if to prove her point, in almost no time Sioux Falls, South Dakota has thousands of cases, a dozen deaths, and a closed meat packing plant.

 

We don't even need to model the multivariate impact of mass death on small business closures. We already know what will happen from history. We are going to have complete economic and social collapse. And note my verb tense. This is going to happen. It is now unavoidable in the US. We are going to have complete economic and social collapse. We do not need to model it. We just need to watch what happens - assuming 99 % of us are lucky enough to survive.

 

Why do I say that?

 

First, we know from 1918 that there was complete economic an social collapse. To the degree that chambers of commerce pushed the idea that the economy came first, it resulted in the most devastating possible economic collapse - every single time. It's a stunningly simple idea, actually.

 

 

When you are at the 1918 parade in Philadelphia, people just didn't consider the possibly that a month from now they would be dead. But they were. It's human nature, I guess. All it takes is one bullet. That's how the virus works. For whatever reason, people just seem to underestimate the devastating impact of those bullets - or viral particles.

 

The tell to me is that all these herd immunity arguments never address any detail of how we achieve the "harmonious balance" they aspire to. There's this vague concept, like you state, that life involves choices, and we need a "multivariate analysis". The word sounds good. If a multivariate analysis gives us harmonious balance, that must be a good thing.

 

So if 20 % of the NYPD is out sick, how does that work? If 10 % of your workforce is hospitalized, and 1 % die, how does that work? If one-third of the dead are seniors in nursing homes - even in Sweden - how does that work? Those are variables. These are all things that just happened in the real world. So take that and say that we're at "only" 60,000 deaths. So to get to 2 million, we need it to be 33 times worse than what we just went through. When I read @purplekow's posts, it makes it very understandable to me that either as individuals, or collectively, we find it very difficult to imagine that kind of living hell.

 

But that living hell was 1918. And that is where we are now headed, by choice.

 

We seem to be determined to do it our way. We have many perfectly good examples of countries that are doing something very different. And it is working much better than what we are doing. The difference between 30,000 infections a day and 20 is pretty dramatic. The difference between 2000 deaths a day and zero deaths is pretty dramatic. It's actually really amazing to me that so much of what I read does not even state the words "test, trace, treat". Even though that is the mantra of the two most trusted scientists in America right now, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.

 

I have a pretty clear idea of what the problem is. I think it really does boil down to one word: individualism. There are many good things and many bad things about individualism. Where it doesn't work well is when you need something like 100 % herd conformity. That pops up with vaccines, because the idea is that if too many in the herd refuse to vaccinate, it fucks things up for the whole herd.

 

So this is just math, and science. If 20 % of the herd won't conform to the rules that keep the herd safe - which is what the polls tell us - then 100 % of the herd is not safe. Hypothetically, if only 20 % of the herd chose to walk into the slaughterhouse, then only the 20 % of the herd that chose to be slaughtered would die. But in the real world, with a lethal and highly contagious virus, it just doesn't work that way. Of course, this is NOT how the 20 % of the herd that feel fine living with the virus is thinking. But it is the scientific fact.

 

So what is actually working in Australia, Austria, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and arguably some other nations can not and will not work here. The 20 % of the herd that is focused on individualism simply will not allow it. The impact on society will be devastating - economically, politically, and otherwise. But for this forum, I'll just focus on the science of it: in epidemics, 20 % can easily rule. Hell, 1 % can rule. At 1 %, the cat is already out of the bag.

 

So we will have hundreds of thousands of seniors die this year. I think we are headed to 2 million dead. And that will mean complete social and economic collapse. So if you want a multivariate analysis, that's it. Just like in 1918, when you add all the variables together, you get complete economic and social collapse.

 

My mother, the Spanish flu orphan

 

I hyperlinked that article above, but I'll cite one of several reasons I posted it. The author notes, correctly I think, that there is a sort of collective amnesia about 1918. She experienced it in her own family. It cost her grandmother and grandfather their lives. It cost her mother her life, in the sense that her mother never "found herself", in the view of the author, and resorted to lifelong alcoholism. She suggests that was the result of the deep childhood trauma of losing both parents to disease. I've read enough to suggest that, other than specific histories about the 1918 pandemic, it tends to get glossed over in general histories. The specific histories about the pandemic suggest that people who lived through it and survived did not want to talk about it or think about it. Once it ended, the dead were buried and people needed to move on. So all of that smacks of deep and unbearable emotional trauma. So you need to factor that into your multivariate analysis, too. Even the living pay a huge price for mass death.

 

There are two variables that mitigate against the inevitability of 2 million dead Americans and that complete social and economic collapse.

 

One variable is other countries. At some point, people will notice that America has over 65,000 dead. And the worst country on the list I cited above is Austria, with 589 dead. Most of those countries have fewer than 100 dead. Human nature being what it is, at some point a critical mass of people may say, "Geez. Maybe there is some room for improvement here." But we are where we are, and Americans are fine with the horror show so far. I think that the 20 % of the herd that is focused on individualism is a fixed number. So as far as the science of it goes, 20 % is more than a majority when it comes to viral herd slaughter in an epidemic. We're just dead meat. The virus will decide which members of the herd live and die, with doctor likes @purplekow having some influence. But it mostly is the virus's decision if you and I are dead meat or not.

 

The second variable is states. So you can argue that California is like South Korea. Or that Ohio is like Australia. So some states will basically look to Australia and South Korea and many other nations - including China - as models. They will roll out "test, trace, treat", and we will see how it works. They will have outbreaks in this factory or that office building anyway. But they will likely prevent complete economic and social collapse, just like some cities managed to in 1918. Same shit, different century.

 

There are many holes that can be poked in my arguments. I'll cite three. First, maybe it won't be 2 million people. Second, maybe "test, trace, treat" is a false promise. Third, and I'll mention this in my next post, maybe it won't take 70 % infection. The best guess is that in 1918 it stopped at 25 % to 28 % infection of the population. That was a flu virus, but we just don't know for sure. We also don't know for sure that people that have antibodies are immune - or for how long.

 

I'm trying to go on fact, and what we have a pretty clear picture of. Friedman and his "harmonious balance" happy talk just sounds like fantasy-based fiction to me. He can't point to one example of any "harmony" based on facts. His concepts failed completely in Sweden, and the guy who designed the policies admits it. Meanwhile, the track record of US states that locked down early, like Ohio and California, and nations focused on "test, trace, treat" is remarkably clear.

[+ tassojunior]

The best way for people not to die unnecessarily is to make sure our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. If we have to ration healthcare to the healthier population because of inadequate resources (ventilators, hospital beds), then there will be unnecessary deaths. Unfortunately, there's a good chance most people will get infected at some point before a vaccine becomes available, if one ever does become available. The idea of flattening the curve is to avoid large numbers of people contracting it around the same time. Even if we flatten out the curve successfully, the total number of people getting Covid-19 may be the same (just spread out over time). Australia may be a different case, since their caseload is so low, that they could conceivably stamp it out completely until there's a vaccine, if they don't let anyone onto the continent who hasn't been tested and vetted (one can test for the virus in a matter of minutes, so one could test every single person prior to boarding the plane or ship headed to the continent).

Flattening the curve made all the sense in the world but as you say, an intent was not to overwhelm resources for other healthcare too. But the number of hospitalizations is shrinking and yet other healthcare seems to be on lockdown. I'm in Kaiser and was told my MD is not working except from home by video and if something seems serious I should go to Urgent Care. Only video appointments and urgent care for all other health issues. A dermatology appointment I had scheduled for 3 months was changed to video. I assume I can still get lab work and xrays. I hope. Doctors closing their offices and refusing to visit hospitals is a serious healthcare shortage that's ignored right now because people aren't sure which narrative it fits.

[+ tassojunior]

The best way for people not to die unnecessarily is to make sure our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. If we have to ration healthcare to the healthier population because of inadequate resources (ventilators, hospital beds), then there will be unnecessary deaths. Unfortunately, there's a good chance most people will get infected at some point before a vaccine becomes available, if one ever does become available. The idea of flattening the curve is to avoid large numbers of people contracting it around the same time. Even if we flatten out the curve successfully, the total number of people getting Covid-19 may be the same (just spread out over time). Australia may be a different case, since their caseload is so low, that they could conceivably stamp it out completely until there's a vaccine, if they don't let anyone onto the continent who hasn't been tested and vetted (one can test for the virus in a matter of minutes, so one could test every single person prior to boarding the plane or ship headed to the continent).

Flattening the curve made all the sense in the world but as you say, an intent was not to overwhelm resources for other healthcare too. But the number of hospitalizations is shrinking and yet other healthcare seems to be on lockdown. I'm in Kaiser and was told my MD is not working except from home by video and if something seems serious I should go to Urgent Care. Only video appointments and urgent care for all other health issues. A dermatology appointment I had scheduled for 3 months was changed to video. I assume I can still get lab work and xrays. I hope. Doctors closing their offices and refusing to visit hospitals is a serious healthcare shortage that's ignored right now because people aren't sure which narrative it fits.