Coronavirus

I've been as careful and respectful of Corona as anyone, but I'm starting to think maybe it's all been a massive overreaction. Massachusetts has been one of the hardest hit states, but the average age of death has been 82, about 5 years higher than the average life expectancy. The majority of people who are not elderly had preexisting conditions. Their has been a tiny amount of deaths among the apparently young and healthy. Small amounts of apparently young and healthy people do get sick and die without corona. Any death is tragic but that's not the point. With all the millions of people that have it or have had it, and don't know it, the fatality rate is going to be much lower than we can ever figure out. Hospitals are over reporting corona deaths to get funding as well. Many who have died were not expected to survive another year regardless of corona. The true survival rate is probably going to turn out to be over 99% including the elderly and those with preexisting conditions. Take them out and it's probably 99.9%. There will be thousands of deaths due to the pandemic and economic impact involving people who are not dying because of corona. If the country were completely opened up, but special attention was given to the at risk people, would there be more or less death? Trump was mocked early on for calling it a flu, and he probably shouldn't be given medical opinions, but he could potentially be wrong going the other way. Millions of people get the flu shot every year yet thousands die. We can't truly compare the two until there is a vaccine for corona. When all is said and done a few years from now, the flu could be worse than corona.

I've heard the "preexisting conditions" argument, but the problem is that term encompasses a lot of very common things that most people don't even think of as conditions, like high blood pressure.

I don't think there's going to be any chance the flu is worse, though: we've lost as many to this in a few weeks as we do to the flu in a year, and that's with the massive nationwide shutdown.

Regardless, as I've noted from the beginning, the problem is the same problem inherent to all counterfactuals: if we shut down, and it works...wouldn't it look like an overreaction? That's the nature of the situation: if you did enough, it should look like you did too much.

I don't know how many people the flu kills on average each year, but if we get a vaccine for corona, and then it still kills more people each year, then we can say it is worse than the flu. Only time will tell.

I basically consider myself at risk because I am a smoker. Sort of like a self-made pre-existing condition. If I get corona and it doesn't turn out well, I would blame the smoking more.

Following up on my earlier reply (I was on a tablet and it was late), it's actually because a trial showed it was ineffective.

I think that's a separate question, since tons of people are exposed to the flu each year without getting it. Not so with this: nobody has immunity (at least coming into all this), and it's much more contagious.

There's just lots of manifest ways in which it's clearly worse. Again, the fact that it killed as many in a few weeks as the flu normally kills in a year, WITH everyone staying inside and going to all this trouble, is a huge deal.

Yeah, that's fair. There's a lot of stuff like that that people don't mentally register as a condition. They think of conditions as really really serious stuff, but the fact is your average American isn't super healthy to begin with, so an awful lot of people who think of themselves as in reasonably good health have some of those risks.

I wouldn't argue your points Yoda because you could be right. But what if the flu was brand new this year with no vaccine? We don't really know, and we have no idea how many millions of people have or have had corona that are unreported.

Oh, you mean worse in some kind of thought experiment, where we just wipe out everyone's antibodies and start from scratch? Yeah, I dunno. That's mostly an academic question, I guess. From what I've read it's just straight-up more contagious, though, and the effect it has on the respiratory system (and on people with clotting issues) is more dangerous than most strains of the flu, but some of these answers might be different if we suddenly didn't have all the immunity we already have. Not having immunity for this is definitely a huge part of the threat.

Yup and I guess there's different answers depending on how you look at it. I'm just wondering if we needed to shut down the country or if we could have just done more to protect the vulnerable. Of course we didn't know then, but maybe it's the best thing to do now.

We'll all get a chance to judge by the second wave.


I know if the guy at work had given it to me, I gave it to my folks and one of them had passed...


Well, nobody would have to worry about me posting random flim-flam anymore.

Every year there's young professional athletes in peak physical condition who miss games due to the flu. I think there's been a couple dozen who have tested positive for corona but they all feel fine. Not a big enough sample size but worth monitoring.

Meanwhile the lady who works at a store I just delivered to coughed three times without covering her mouth. She's wearing a shield but no mask. The sign on the door says no entry without a mask.

The uncovered coughing in public drives me irrationally angry. You should be able to spray people with water like a cat when they do it.

Me and the wife were among the first to take notice of the Coronavirus back when the news was focused on the Princess cruise ship that had it. We were also among the first to wear face mask & gloves while shopping. I have believed this would be a very serious thing since the start....HOWEVER in the last week or so I've also started thinking we've overacted in some areas of prevention, while not doing enough in other areas.

I posted a couple of news links here that no one commented on: there was widespread Covid-19 antibody testing done in L.A county, Ca. and in New York of apparently healthy people who hadn't had Covid-19. They were tested for antibodies to see if they had ever had Covid-19 in the past. This test then provide data on how wide spread Covid-19 was in the population. Both antibody test showed that Covid-19 was MUCH more widespread than original thought...AND...the death rate was far, far lower in these two test ares. The death rate was calculated at only .5% That's 10 times lower than the original estimate of 4 or 5%. And .5% is about the same death rate as the seasonal flu.

However, Covid-19 does seem to spread MUCH faster than the flu so the overall death rate would be much higher than the flu if preventive measures weren't taken.

One thing that's not been mentioned on this thread: researchers have discovered up to 30 different strains of Covid-19. It seems it easily mutates once it's in the human population. While the original strain in China was deadly. Many of these other strains are no more deadlier than the seasonal flu.

With all that said, I think the focus should be put on individual prevention for those at risk and most business could be opened back up.

I think we need to adjust our preventive measures to reflect the fact that Covid-19 death rate isn't nearly as high per individual than we had originally thought.

The really telling thing are the first-hand accounts from nurses and doctors in places like New York. That's the stuff that can't be faked, can't be hype. The flu doesn't overwhelm their system like that, so either the contagiousness, the lack of preexisting immunities, or both, or something else, makes this unique.

I would wipe everything down when you return, including your phone. Whether anyone has or has not physically been in your office. You don’t know who randomly has been in there.

I’m debating whether to return to my rectory voluntary work a little later this month. It’s only 3 hours twice a month, but I got badly spooked in late April by the thought of the germs there that I have taken a break since. We were sharing a phone, the mailman doesn’t wear a mask or gloves, etc. I had no clue who used my little “desk” if I wasn’t there, etc. I was terrified I would give it to my husband.

Frightening. When we resume our church food pantry - maybe the 1st week of June if the Archbishop says so - we are going to have many unemployed people registering with us.

Oi! Who sprays a cat!!

Exactly. Unfortunately, it’s not fake.

__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

New York is like that but most places aren't. Massachusetts is I believe the hardest hit behind NY and NJ, but there's plenty of beds available. Gov. Baker today made masks mandatory in public throughout the state. We are going to see many more deaths later from things like cancer because people aren't going in to get checked. The reverberating effects of the virus are going to be worse than the virus itself.

Perhaps most places aren't because they saw New York first? As I mentioned, it's pretty hard to provide a meaningful counterfactual here. "We reacted correctly and kept the threat minimal" would look the same as "We overreacted to the threat." The stuff we can see, in the places that didn't have other locations to warn them (like in Europe), would seem to suggest it's more the former than the latter, though. All the places where it didn't crash the system they either took *huge* distancing measures very early, or took significant ones with a lot more lead time than Spain/Italy/New York. The places that did neither overwhelmed their health care systems.

Ah no, the dreaded C word has even made it onto the forum! Noooooo!

Guys, how do you rate President Trump's management of the crisis?