Actually it wasn't the number of deaths so much as fears that, that level of infection would overwhelm the countries health service's ability to cope. As it stands, even with the measures so far announced, there will be not enough ventilators to cope with the projected number of cases. So the UK government has put a call out for help from the manufacturing sector. It shouldn't have come as a surprise but one of those sectors to respond is a sporting one. See this BBC article on British based Formula one teams doing just that.
One little note on that spreadsheet I linked to above. Those that download it will see a single large number sitting on its own to the left of the main grid of data. As it ships, that is the current world population size. By altering that one number you will be able to see numbers for your country/state/county/city/town/village depending on the population figure you enter.
FWIW, if you really want to make yourself depressed, I have created an Excel spreadsheet to illustrate what the worldwide death-toll could be by the time this outbreak has finished. It is based on 3 things -
The worlds total population (currently 7.8 billion)
The percentage of this population that gets infected
The percentage of infected people who die due to the illness
The answers that are calculated are sobering. In a normal year seasonal influenza kills between 290,000 and 650,000. The smallest outcome I came up with for covid (at 5% of the world population catching it and with a mortality rate of just half a percent) is 1,950,000.
I have put this spreadsheet up on dropbox and will delete it on the 28th March (i.e. in 1 week). Here is the link.
TR
You should compare it to this paper. This isn't a correction, I just think you might find it interesting. Sobering as well. To be fair, this is an extremely pessimistic forecast.
Actually it wasn't the number of deaths so much as fears that, that level of infection would overwhelm the countries health service's ability to cope.
The two are linked. If you look at Italy you can see the number of deaths is currently at about 9% of reported cases - far higher than other countries. Even if you believe that under-reporting of cases in Italy is greater than that elsewhere, it's clear there's something else going on. That other factor is that the Italian health service has been unable to deal with pressures in infection hot-spots and significant numbers of people are dying as a result, who would not have done so if given the best available treatment.
The 250,000 figure coming out of the UK modelling was not a worst-case scenario and did not allow for any increased fatality rate as a result of pressures on the health service. Rather it reflects the expected deaths from a range of modelling predictions based on the earlier UK intentions to take less action to suppress the disease. Essentially the models found that if a large proportion of the population were to be infected, even lowering the peak numbers by spreading those infections over a longer period of time would not allow the health service to cope. Those results can certainly be criticized - you've referred for instance to intentions to increase the levels of equipment and it's also been suggested that the level of intensive care beds could be increased significantly more than the modelling allowed for.
The idea of allowing infections to move faster through the population, in order to build up herd immunity, looks relatively attractive as a way through the disease crisis if you assume that most of the population will get the disease at some point anyway and that the health outcomes of that will be relatively similar whether progression is fast or slow. The Imperial College modelling cast doubt on that by demonstrating that the health service would not be able to cope if infection rates were not held down by significant social control measures. The data coming out of Italy about the impact on death rates of an over-stretched health service is even more alarming than that for Wuhan - meaning that the deaths suggested by the modelling are likely to be much lower than reality if the bulk of the population were infected. It was this potential scale of death that was crucial in changing the emphasis of the UK response. It's currently felt that the level of short term deaths projected in order to achieve herd immunity is unacceptable - even though that means we are now in a situation where we are relying on the hope of an effective vaccination as a means to restore what was previously considered social normality in the foreseeable future.
My post above refers to more factors that should be built into the modelling in future. After a few months of being subject to social controls, the costs of those (both economically and in terms of life) are likely to be much clearer and those costs can be built into improved modelling to guide reviews of the ongoing strategy.
This is a useful article to keep the potential deaths from Covid-19 in perspective. The major reason why the UK accelerated and intensified their proposed actions to check the disease was the modelling predicting that the intended approach would lead to about 250,000 deaths.
In a perfect scenario where suppression works well and an effective vaccine is available as early as possible, that could be reduced down to more like 20,000 deaths. However, those figures don't take into account deaths that would have occurred anyway. Given that Covid-19 is far more lethal for the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions there will be a fair number in that group. I tried to do a bit of research on that last week, but found there were too many unknowns. For instance the average number of deaths in the 80-84 cohort is a bit over 6%, but it will be precisely those most likely to die anyway that will tend to die from Covid-19. Theoretically that could mean the proportion that would have died anyway could be anywhere from 10% to about 80%, though I suspect it would be much closer to the former figure.
In addition though, there has been little modelling so far of the impact of the various actions. It's well known already that social isolation is bad for your health, as is lack of exercise - and the social distancing measures will have an indirect impact on deaths through both of those. Another indirect impact relates to things not being done as a result of the concentration on Covid-19. For instance my mum had a replacement hip operation done a few months ago, in an attempt to be able to maintain her role in caring for my dad. Such operations are described as 'quality of life' (and are currently not being performed), but will certainly have an impact on deaths as well as quality of life.
There's a further indirect effect likely through the longer term impact on the economy. Following the 2008 financial crisis and the cost of the bailout, the UK had a long period of austerity - the process of reversing that has only recently been started. In the last few years the very long term trend for longer life has halted and one theory for why that is relates to the impact of austerity (lower charitable funding, fewer public service workers, lower benefits). If the current measures to deal with Covid-19 are maintained, their cost is likely to be much greater than those measures used following the financial crisis - so we might expect another very long period of austerity with all that entails.
The above is essentially talking about deaths, but there's also a wider question about quality of life and how you weigh that in the scale. I fully appreciate that is a really difficult thing to discuss, but it is the sort of question that is regularly addressed - particularly in the medical field. Examples of that for instance are to what extreme you take resuscitation attempts, when you switch off life support and whether you make new (and costly) drugs widely available.
There is no 'good' answer to how we deal with Covid-19, but if we're to find one of the 'least-worst' options, we'll need to give a lot more consideration to the wider implications of the disease rather than concentrating too much on the question of how many people will die while infected.
Ok, so, first off, I'm fairly certain that social isolation for 2-3 months or even a year is preferable to drowing from the fluid in your own lungs. Secondly, "there is nothing more we can do" is alot different than "we can't even attempt to treat you because we don't have the proper equipment". Third, you don't have to look far for cases of 30, 40, 50 and 60 year old patients who are passing away who absolutely would have lived regular lives were they not infected by it. And last, these deaths are going to happen in bulk, quickly. I don't think it's remotely fair to say that because someone had some health issue and was old that COVID-19 only played a PART in their death. If someone like that is dying in the last month of so, and they had the virus, the virus IS the reason they are dead. And again, in the worst outbreak area in Italy, we are talking about elderly patients simply being abandoned because there is no choice. And frankly, the UK changed their tactic because their original plan was always a high stakes gamble that was never likely to work and more akin to wishful thinking:
It is just utterly amazing that the UK and US had nearly EVERY other country to look at in the run-up to this and not only decided to make similar mistakes, but also make entirely new ones on top of that. I can only chalk it up to arrogance. But it's the UK and US. Great empires now brought to their knees by a microbe. In South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, this thing is totally under control because they did what they had to do.
The virus is not 'totally under control' anywhere. They're already talking about the possibility of a 2nd wave in China. People will not stay put forever. There is no completely stopping a virus unless you want to stay in your house until a vaccine is developed.
Just listen to some of these stories... Wish people would stop trying to compare this to the flu, it's far beyond the flu. https://youtu.be/uICgwJ6iD-w
Nobody can take away the power that you have to choose how you individually are going to respond to an unknown. When you willingly give up that power, you give in totally to fear. Fear makes choices for you and usually the wrong ones.
These are a couple of videos that poke at or lighten up the mood over Covid-19. Some might find them offensive others will understand the humor I assume.
It's certainly going to reach them better than "Sing Happy Birthday twice" .
We have our first patients in my hospital. I'm beginning to feel a bit nervous. I hope we won't face what Italy has to face now, having to decide who gets one of the few remaining ventilators and who dies.
So, everybody, be brave, play Baldur's Gate in your living room to protect yourself and your community! ?
Today Singapore (where I currently live) announced the first two deaths from COVID-19. One is a woman in her 60's with other medical conditions, while the other was an Indonesian citizen who was flown here for treatment (he already had severe pneumonia when he arrived). The government's been warning us all for some time that it was only a matter of time before the first fatality, but it's still a sobering reminder. Thus far the Singapore government has done a truly remarkable job of containing and isolating the disease, and for the most part life here continues as normal, although steps have been taken to close large gatherings that could act as vectors for spreading the disease when contact tracings have been done. (For example, after two confirmed cases were linked to an Islamic religious festival in neighboring Malaysia, all mosques in Singapore were shut for two weeks to prevent any possible spread of infection should there be undetected cases that came back into the country. Recently another two confirmed cases were found linked to an Anglican church, and likewise all Anglican and Methodist churches were also shut for two weeks.)
Despite all of this though, the only way things will REALLY go back to normal is when an effective vaccine is developed and distributed, and that's likely still 12 to 18 months away. Leaving aside the likely high death toll over such a period, the economic fallout and shocks to people's educational and professional growth is going to have repercussions for decades to come.
@Balrog99 "it's 'kick the shit out of somebody different than me so I can feel better'ism."
Um, you DO know that what you just described is racism when applied to an ethnicity, right? Its predjudiced behaviour against someone who belongs to a different group than you, someone different. In this case, its because the person was Asian. Racism.
No, racism is forcing Asians to leave the country, or into concentration camps, or groups of people destroying their shops/restaurants. What you're describing is one person being an asshole.
What? Why do you think that its only racism when its extreme?
Literal definition of racism "Discrimination or prejudice based on race." The severity is not a factor.
It's not based solely on 'race' though. It's based on the idiotic conception that certain people have a higher chance of harboring a potentially deadly disease! I've heard that Italians are being targeted, too. Italian isn't a race last time I checked.
Based on their "race" yes. They live somewhere else and look different, so therefore that makes them carriers. "They are carrier because they are Italian" "They are carriers because they are Chinese". Predjudice based on race, therefore, RACISM. If you want to get real technical, "races" don't exist. We're all Homo Sapiens. Racists have never been bothered by the facts though.
Health officials in two of the USes biggest cities are recommending doctors avoid coronavirus testing except when result would significantly change treatment. We don't have enough tests.
We're being forced to ration tests because we don't have enough.
In other news, Pence and his wife will be tested Saturday afternoon for coronavirus again.
Third, you don't have to look far for cases of 30, 40, 50 and 60 year old patients who are passing away who absolutely would have lived regular lives were they not infected by it.
Are you sure about that? Based on the Chinese experience the expected mortality rate for people aged 30-39 is 0.08%, 40-49 is 0.15%. That means you would expect less than 1 death per thousand patients aged 30-39 infected with Covid-19 (and that includes people with other medical conditions). If you've seen stories about multiple deaths in this age group in the US I would suggest carefully reviewing the source of those stories to make sure they are genuine.
I don't think it's remotely fair to say that because someone had some health issue and was old that COVID-19 only played a PART in their death. If someone like that is dying in the last month of so, and they had the virus, the virus IS the reason they are dead.
It's not reasonable to say that Covid-19 is the sole cause for all deaths - is someone asymptomatic who dies in a traffic accident really a victim of the disease? As I suggested before I think the only reasonable way to look at this when considering whole populations is to consider the excess mortality over what you would have expected anyway. While disentangling all the underlying causes is impossible at an individual level, at population level this will give you good information about the impact of the disease. It will also help assess the extent to which the social controls used to tackle the disease are causing other problems.
It is just utterly amazing that the UK and US had nearly EVERY other country to look at in the run-up to this and not only decided to make similar mistakes, but also make entirely new ones on top of that. I can only chalk it up to arrogance. But it's the UK and US. Great empires now brought to their knees by a microbe. In South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, this thing is totally under control because they did what they had to do.
As @Balrog99 has already mentioned, the disease is not totally under control anywhere. I posted before about Singapore, where the population is used to a high degree of social control and there is close monitoring of borders, while the mainly urban setting has very high coverage from CCTV - that all allows case tracing to an extent impossible in most locations. Despite those advantages though they have still been unable to prevent a slow increase in infections over time. South Korea is still seeing significant numbers of new cases (more than the UK for instance). I haven't seen much information on Taiwan, but think they are following a similar pattern to Singapore.
Your post suggests you think the UK has a high number of cases. In fact those are relatively low by comparison with other Western European countries - well below Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway etc. The measures that have been taken recently are aimed precisely at choking off the increasing numbers of cases to avoid the sort of situation currently seen in Italy. I agree that what's been done is necessary at this stage, but I also think it would be a huge mistake not to keep monitoring and improving the information available in order to get a better basis for taking action in the coming months.
Actually it wasn't the number of deaths so much as fears that, that level of infection would overwhelm the countries health service's ability to cope.
The two are linked. If you look at Italy you can see the number of deaths is currently at about 9% of reported cases - far higher than other countries. Even if you believe that under-reporting of cases in Italy is greater than that elsewhere, it's clear there's something else going on.
There is nothing going on. Unless your testing sample is representative of the whole population, the numbers will be skewed. That's why it's difficult to estimate the numbers during the outbreak, especially when using non-standarized, non-validated testing methods.
I agree that differences between the proportions of infections identified as cases in different countries will account for part of the difference in fatality rates, but I don't think that's the only answer.
A significant difference between the median age of diagnosed cases and population would be expected given that Covid is not only more serious for older people, but also more prevalent. This study based on Wuhan has fed into the evidence base used by the UK. This table taken from that shows the extent to which expected levels of hospitalization change by age.The case fatality rates reported in Italy are also fairly consistent at just over double those expected on the basis of Wuhan. If it were the case that the higher CFRs in Italy were only due to differences in levels of case recording, you would not expect such a consistent pattern (the greater proportion of older people requiring hospitalization would reduce the differential between recorded cases in different countries).
Quite apart from reviewing the figures (which I agree involves a lot of assumptions that are difficult to test at the moment) the Italians have also been quite open about the fact that they've had to ration treatment in the worst affected areas as a result of the high demand (see here for instance). Given how critical ventilation treatment is for the more severe cases I don't think there's any doubt that this rationing will have significantly affected mortality rates.
A minor annoyance that just reinforces my opinion of human beings in general:
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
A minor annoyance that just reinforces my opinion of human beings in general:
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
Everyone's experiences are anecdotal, but from my personal observation, people are only "distancing" to the extent they are forced to. In places like grocery stores that are still open, nothing looks different to me. No space in line, people not giving each other space in the aisles. As far as I can tell, most of the country seems to think this is some kind of glorified snow day.
A minor annoyance that just reinforces my opinion of human beings in general:
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
Here's a question for you? Did you wipe down the handle of the pump before using it? I guarantee the worker who is locked in the pay shack to prevent himself from getting the virus had did it in the last, oh, ever.
A minor annoyance that just reinforces my opinion of human beings in general:
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
Everyone's experiences are anecdotal, but from my personal observation, people are only "distancing" to the extent they are forced to. In places like grocery stores that are still open, nothing looks different to me. No space in line, people not giving each other space in the aisles. As far as I can tell, most of the country seems to think this is some kind of glorified snow day.
So apparently these jackasses don't even listen to Trump? Great...
More stories, and hard numbers. Too many people keep clinging to the, "80% of deaths are above 80" ignoring the fact 40% of the hospitalized from covid-19 are actually 20-50, and it still CAN kill younger people.
Some of these people have someone who can find them dead, not everyone is even that lucky though. https://youtu.be/WVf-HbuXWho
A minor annoyance that just reinforces my opinion of human beings in general:
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
Here's a question for you? Did you wipe down the handle of the pump before using it? I guarantee the worker who is locked in the pay shack to prevent himself from getting the virus had did it in the last, oh, ever.
No wipes. I did wash my hands when I got home though...
Edit: Well you made me paranoid enough to pull out a Lysol wipe and wipe down my steering wheel, shifter, car door handles, phone and both doorknobs on my garage door. I swear, I'm not normally a germaphobe!
COVID 19 will gonna be a massive problem for southern cone during the winter. Mainly because the southern cone is the region from south america more dependent on tourism during the Winter. Here in my city, the major ordered that all gyms, nightclubs, etc got suspended for weeks.
A lot of people on US thinks "every place in south america is either Mexico City or Hell de Janeiro", but the weather in southern cone is extremely chaotic and in some places is very cold. In my city, during the summer, we receive a lot of "hot" from north and during the winter, is glacial, believe or not i saw Penguins on the beach of my state( 110km from my city. note that June is winter on southern hemisphere). Flu and Corona virus will gonna be a nightmare when hailstorms happens or maybe snow(much rarer).
In the US we are basically only testing healthcare workers and those sick enough to be hospitalized in the hardest hit areas. I doubt anyone actually thinks the death rate coming out of Italy (over 9%) is accurate. The point of testing is not just to let someone know if they have it or update a spreadsheet. The point of testing is to find out and confirm every single person possible who has it and get them isolated, and those they have been around isolated. But we're not doing that. It's what South Korea did. We're not only having to ration the tests, we're having to SEVERELY ration the tests. So while we know about the people who are really feeling ill, we have virtually NO idea of the people who are generally feeling ok to kind of bad who have it, when they got it, or if they are still spreading it, and where they have been spreading it. Add in doctors and nurses who are using one mask for an entire week, all of whom are likely to contract the virus themselves sooner than later, reducing the pool of workers who can actually treat patients. That is what the US is facing within days at this point. The original estimates to hit 30,000 CONFIRMED cases was the 23rd or 24th. We are easily going to top that a day early. The US is poised to become ground zero. Maybe not as immediately deadly as Italy because of the larger geographic location, but FAR greater numbers in the grand scheme of things.
Well, I'm being recruited into the front lines (sort of). They're whipping up some home-made hand-sanitizer in one of the 5-gallon reactors on Monday. I get to assist in the analysis. If it works they're going to scale-up to the 250-gallon reactor. We'll be just supplying our site, but with the big batches we could probably supply other company sites and maybe even help outside the company.
Funny, none of the managers are going in to 'supervise'...
Well, I'm being recruited into the front lines (sort of). They're whipping up some home-made hand-sanitizer in one of the 5-gallon reactors on Monday. I get to assist in the analysis. If it works they're going to scale-up to the 250-gallon reactor. We'll be just supplying our site, but with the big batches we could probably supply other company sites and maybe even help outside the company.
Funny, none of the managers are going in to 'supervise'...
Well, I'm being recruited into the front lines (sort of). They're whipping up some home-made hand-sanitizer in one of the 5-gallon reactors on Monday. I get to assist in the analysis. If it works they're going to scale-up to the 250-gallon reactor. We'll be just supplying our site, but with the big batches we could probably supply other company sites and maybe even help outside the company.
Funny, none of the managers are going in to 'supervise'...
My roommate, who works in a hospital pharmacy, said they are doing the same thing - making their own hand sanitizer from scratch so they don't run out. Maybe not 250 gallons of the stuff, but as much as they can.
Comments
One little note on that spreadsheet I linked to above. Those that download it will see a single large number sitting on its own to the left of the main grid of data. As it ships, that is the current world population size. By altering that one number you will be able to see numbers for your country/state/county/city/town/village depending on the population figure you enter.
TR
You should compare it to this paper. This isn't a correction, I just think you might find it interesting. Sobering as well. To be fair, this is an extremely pessimistic forecast.
The two are linked. If you look at Italy you can see the number of deaths is currently at about 9% of reported cases - far higher than other countries. Even if you believe that under-reporting of cases in Italy is greater than that elsewhere, it's clear there's something else going on. That other factor is that the Italian health service has been unable to deal with pressures in infection hot-spots and significant numbers of people are dying as a result, who would not have done so if given the best available treatment.
The 250,000 figure coming out of the UK modelling was not a worst-case scenario and did not allow for any increased fatality rate as a result of pressures on the health service. Rather it reflects the expected deaths from a range of modelling predictions based on the earlier UK intentions to take less action to suppress the disease. Essentially the models found that if a large proportion of the population were to be infected, even lowering the peak numbers by spreading those infections over a longer period of time would not allow the health service to cope. Those results can certainly be criticized - you've referred for instance to intentions to increase the levels of equipment and it's also been suggested that the level of intensive care beds could be increased significantly more than the modelling allowed for.
The idea of allowing infections to move faster through the population, in order to build up herd immunity, looks relatively attractive as a way through the disease crisis if you assume that most of the population will get the disease at some point anyway and that the health outcomes of that will be relatively similar whether progression is fast or slow. The Imperial College modelling cast doubt on that by demonstrating that the health service would not be able to cope if infection rates were not held down by significant social control measures. The data coming out of Italy about the impact on death rates of an over-stretched health service is even more alarming than that for Wuhan - meaning that the deaths suggested by the modelling are likely to be much lower than reality if the bulk of the population were infected. It was this potential scale of death that was crucial in changing the emphasis of the UK response. It's currently felt that the level of short term deaths projected in order to achieve herd immunity is unacceptable - even though that means we are now in a situation where we are relying on the hope of an effective vaccination as a means to restore what was previously considered social normality in the foreseeable future.
My post above refers to more factors that should be built into the modelling in future. After a few months of being subject to social controls, the costs of those (both economically and in terms of life) are likely to be much clearer and those costs can be built into improved modelling to guide reviews of the ongoing strategy.
Ok, so, first off, I'm fairly certain that social isolation for 2-3 months or even a year is preferable to drowing from the fluid in your own lungs. Secondly, "there is nothing more we can do" is alot different than "we can't even attempt to treat you because we don't have the proper equipment". Third, you don't have to look far for cases of 30, 40, 50 and 60 year old patients who are passing away who absolutely would have lived regular lives were they not infected by it. And last, these deaths are going to happen in bulk, quickly. I don't think it's remotely fair to say that because someone had some health issue and was old that COVID-19 only played a PART in their death. If someone like that is dying in the last month of so, and they had the virus, the virus IS the reason they are dead. And again, in the worst outbreak area in Italy, we are talking about elderly patients simply being abandoned because there is no choice. And frankly, the UK changed their tactic because their original plan was always a high stakes gamble that was never likely to work and more akin to wishful thinking:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/20/london-hospitals-struggle-to-cope-with-coronavirus-surge
It is just utterly amazing that the UK and US had nearly EVERY other country to look at in the run-up to this and not only decided to make similar mistakes, but also make entirely new ones on top of that. I can only chalk it up to arrogance. But it's the UK and US. Great empires now brought to their knees by a microbe. In South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, this thing is totally under control because they did what they had to do.
The virus is not 'totally under control' anywhere. They're already talking about the possibility of a 2nd wave in China. People will not stay put forever. There is no completely stopping a virus unless you want to stay in your house until a vaccine is developed.
The US Army Corps of Engineers says they can retrofit some buildings in New York just give them a month or so maybe.
https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Army-Corps-of-Engineers-aims-to-convert-buildings-15147448.php
"Wash your hands as if you had just cut some chili peppers and now wanted to masturbate"
And maybe this, too:
It's certainly going to reach them better than "Sing Happy Birthday twice" .
We have our first patients in my hospital. I'm beginning to feel a bit nervous. I hope we won't face what Italy has to face now, having to decide who gets one of the few remaining ventilators and who dies.
So, everybody, be brave, play Baldur's Gate in your living room to protect yourself and your community! ?
Despite all of this though, the only way things will REALLY go back to normal is when an effective vaccine is developed and distributed, and that's likely still 12 to 18 months away. Leaving aside the likely high death toll over such a period, the economic fallout and shocks to people's educational and professional growth is going to have repercussions for decades to come.
Based on their "race" yes. They live somewhere else and look different, so therefore that makes them carriers. "They are carrier because they are Italian" "They are carriers because they are Chinese". Predjudice based on race, therefore, RACISM. If you want to get real technical, "races" don't exist. We're all Homo Sapiens. Racists have never been bothered by the facts though.
We're being forced to ration tests because we don't have enough.
In other news, Pence and his wife will be tested Saturday afternoon for coronavirus again.
It's not reasonable to say that Covid-19 is the sole cause for all deaths - is someone asymptomatic who dies in a traffic accident really a victim of the disease? As I suggested before I think the only reasonable way to look at this when considering whole populations is to consider the excess mortality over what you would have expected anyway. While disentangling all the underlying causes is impossible at an individual level, at population level this will give you good information about the impact of the disease. It will also help assess the extent to which the social controls used to tackle the disease are causing other problems.
As @Balrog99 has already mentioned, the disease is not totally under control anywhere. I posted before about Singapore, where the population is used to a high degree of social control and there is close monitoring of borders, while the mainly urban setting has very high coverage from CCTV - that all allows case tracing to an extent impossible in most locations. Despite those advantages though they have still been unable to prevent a slow increase in infections over time. South Korea is still seeing significant numbers of new cases (more than the UK for instance). I haven't seen much information on Taiwan, but think they are following a similar pattern to Singapore.
Your post suggests you think the UK has a high number of cases. In fact those are relatively low by comparison with other Western European countries - well below Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway etc. The measures that have been taken recently are aimed precisely at choking off the increasing numbers of cases to avoid the sort of situation currently seen in Italy. I agree that what's been done is necessary at this stage, but I also think it would be a huge mistake not to keep monitoring and improving the information available in order to get a better basis for taking action in the coming months.
I agree that differences between the proportions of infections identified as cases in different countries will account for part of the difference in fatality rates, but I don't think that's the only answer.
A significant difference between the median age of diagnosed cases and population would be expected given that Covid is not only more serious for older people, but also more prevalent. This study based on Wuhan has fed into the evidence base used by the UK. This table taken from that shows the extent to which expected levels of hospitalization change by age.
Quite apart from reviewing the figures (which I agree involves a lot of assumptions that are difficult to test at the moment) the Italians have also been quite open about the fact that they've had to ration treatment in the worst affected areas as a result of the high demand (see here for instance). Given how critical ventilation treatment is for the more severe cases I don't think there's any doubt that this rationing will have significantly affected mortality rates.
So I just went out to gas up a little while ago. Traffic is lighter than normal, but not ghost-town levels. There's a couple of people filling up their vehicles also so I pull in to a spot that's a fair ways away from them (it's a big station so there are 5 rows both sides - 18 pumps to choose from). The other two finish and leave then another vehicle pulls in. This idiot pulls in right behind me. There's literally every other pump to choose from! Then the driver gets out and his teenaged son also get out and start wandering around. I'm not paranoid about this virus by any means, but really! WTF dude!!! How hard is it to keep your distance when there's nobody else pumping? Clueless...
Everyone's experiences are anecdotal, but from my personal observation, people are only "distancing" to the extent they are forced to. In places like grocery stores that are still open, nothing looks different to me. No space in line, people not giving each other space in the aisles. As far as I can tell, most of the country seems to think this is some kind of glorified snow day.
Here's a question for you? Did you wipe down the handle of the pump before using it? I guarantee the worker who is locked in the pay shack to prevent himself from getting the virus had did it in the last, oh, ever.
So apparently these jackasses don't even listen to Trump? Great...
Some of these people have someone who can find them dead, not everyone is even that lucky though.
No wipes. I did wash my hands when I got home though...
Edit: Well you made me paranoid enough to pull out a Lysol wipe and wipe down my steering wheel, shifter, car door handles, phone and both doorknobs on my garage door. I swear, I'm not normally a germaphobe!
A lot of people on US thinks "every place in south america is either Mexico City or Hell de Janeiro", but the weather in southern cone is extremely chaotic and in some places is very cold. In my city, during the summer, we receive a lot of "hot" from north and during the winter, is glacial, believe or not i saw Penguins on the beach of my state( 110km from my city. note that June is winter on southern hemisphere). Flu and Corona virus will gonna be a nightmare when hailstorms happens or maybe snow(much rarer).
And the president, dumbly praised the manifestations and even took photos with people during manifestations.
Funny, none of the managers are going in to 'supervise'...
My roommate, who works in a hospital pharmacy, said they are doing the same thing - making their own hand sanitizer from scratch so they don't run out. Maybe not 250 gallons of the stuff, but as much as they can.