Corona Virus

Post November, the Corona virus will not be such a big deal in the US. It will have outlived it’s usefulness. You can blast me in December if this isn’t true. If you have the discipline to wait that long.

 

I disagree, JtC. That said, I hope you are correct.

 

Unfortunately that's not the case in my home state of Arizona and many other states in the U.S. I wish....

 

Although not really my business as I am not an American I have to say that I tend to think that @JtC has a very valid point in that, at the moment the opposition party have the ability to use the Covid19 and it's handling as an additional political tool to use against the current incumbents and so will play up everything they can about Covid and the governments handling of it but, if they managed to unseat the current administration then they will undoubtedly want to turn things around and play down the importance of the Covid19 and governmental handling under their new administration. That is simple Politics 101' where even a plague can be used to political advantage. Here in my neck of the woods we have the SNP who are due to face an election next year which will be crucial to their plans to continue to seek independence for Scotland and so you can bet that they are gathering all the ammunition they can in regard of the UK governments handling of Covid19 versus the handling of it within Scotland itself where the SNP had a lot of control over the response. They are, of course, trying to play down any outbreaks North of the Border or blame them on people coming from the South. The SNP are looking to gain ground in order to push and try and achieve a mandate to demand independence and they will seek every advantage to make ground.

Unfortunately I think the big question of Covid19 now is not whether quarantine was right or not, whether it was too early or too late or not stringent enough. The real 'elephant in the room' is how the Deaths due to the virus will stack up against the possibly millions of lifetimes financially ruined in the coming recession. I have heard that they are conservatively estimating that, when the 'Furlough scheme' in the UK ends there will be almost two million more people who will be made unemployed. It will likely take decades to recover from the financial fallout. It is terrible that a lot of people have lost their lives to the virus but, at the same time, when those figures are held against the tallies of 'normal' deaths they seem like quite a small figure. It is truly shocking to see just how many people die of cancer, heart failure, accidents, suicide etc. etc. on a weekly basis and I have also heard a figure bandied around in the UK for estimated deaths in excess of 20,000 people because they didn't get routine healthcare due to Covid19 shutting doctors surgeries and making people reluctant to seek treatment.

 

Media scare numbers, 35 cases per 100,000? Math requires looking at the units. Are the state casino's still open and the only entertainment venue? Are churches still packing them in, real estate agent commented Wednesday that his church had 60 new cases. Holy moly shut down the bars entirely but allow restaurants that serve food and alcohol drinks to stay open till 12:00? Ask why.

 

What's happening in New York at the moment?

 

I've posted this link before but its bears repeating because I keep hearing and reading comments that make it seem like we face a binary choice--lockdown to control viral spread or reopen to avert financial ruin. There are choices that could have been and still can be made to control the spread AND keep the economy running.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/pages/face-masks-and-gdp.html

I agree that it's stunning to see death rates due to cancer, heart failure, accidents, suicide, etc., Marty. But living in the U.S., what really upsets me is that had our response to COVID been better, many people wouldn't be dead in addition to all those who die from the causes you listed. I don't think that those whose family and friends have died from COVID are thinking of their deaths as normal. Many other countries have handled the pandemic better than the U.S. but we seem unwilling to follow their protocols or adapt their successful practices or in many cases even ask for help. And that has manifested itself in the stunning fact that the U.S. has 20-25% of the world's COVID cases but only 4% of the world's population. And that as of today, there have been 152,870 deaths in the U.S. since the first patient was given a COVID diagnosis on January 20th.

This from the CDC updated August 1, 2020:

 

I don't know garethr. I can barely keep up with what's happening in my state and my county. And it turns out that the highest number of cases in my county is in the zip code where my husband and I work. Sheesh. You should easily be able to find out the NY news with a quick google search, though.

 

Hi Sandi. Yes. Difficult all round. Assuming 330M people in US. 152,870/330M amounts to 0.046% deaths. In the UK 50K/70M = 0.071%. Leaving aside for a moment that comparing different countries rates of infection are meaningless because of sundry causes, ie: the way they report their figures are different, they are dishonest in their reporting, population density, diet, general health, religious practices etc - let's face it, these figures are tiny. Different countries may well have handled the disease better but only in the sense that they have delayed onset of the disease in those that are inevitably vulnerable in the long run. You can argue that delaying the infection will lead to better outcomes as vaccines may be developed or treatment methods improve but we must keep this all in perspective. During the Black Death in England, for example, between 40-60% of the population was wiped out. The Spanish flue pandemic killed about 50 million worldwide. Because we have instant communication, the fear is greater than the disease currently warrants. That is not to diminish the grief caused to those families affected by it. Nobody is to blame, we are all affected - we just need to get on with it. To quote from The Shawshank Redemption - you can get busy living or get busy dying. But do it safely - keep your distance, wear a mask and wash your hands.

 

If only we could get the general population to follow these simple rules ........

 

Too true

 

I am hoping that the reduced illnesses in NZ over the height of winter is the increased awareness of the benefit of clean hands and surfaces.
Schools are barely seeing colds and the flu has been minimal, not to mention stomach bugs.
I am sure some of it is NO international travel and quarantine at the border, but we live in hope the messages and fear has had a positive outcome for the future.

 

The vital question of course is 'will there ever be an effective vaccine or even an effective medication to improve survival rates?' I have a few folks in my list of online and 'real life' acquaintances who I know are or claim to be involved in virology, pharmacology etc. or who have partners who are and they say it is very much up in the air whether a vaccine is possible. If it isn't possible then, of course, all Social Distancing, wearing masks etc. is doing is postponing the inevitable.

In an interesting aside about some little reported aspects of this virus, one of my closer friends, who lives over in Edinburgh is in his mid sixties, a little overweight and diabetic while his wife is in her mid forties and superfit, does all those 'Ironman' events or whatever they call the equivalent for women, triathalons etc. and is an expert on and lecturer in virology. They both fell victim to the virus around mid April. He felt like he had a weird heavy cold/mild flu that came and went and was gone in around four days while she had hallucinations, fevers and all manner of strange events. She was rushed to hospital where a young doctor tried to tell her that it was 'all in her mind' and she should just go home, that is, until she ripped him to shreds and informed him of all the knowledge of Covid19 that he was sadly lacking including giving him the names and numbers of the experts who could set him straight. What apparently was going on is that, in rare cases of Covid19, the virus can jump the blood/brain barrier and go for the old grey matter rather than the respiratory system. My pal tells me that, even now, although she has largely recovered she is still having issues as a result of the damage the virus has done.

 

In the UK 50K/70M = 0.071%.

This figure means what? The amount of Covid deaths against the population of the UK? It’s just a statistic and is presented to show how insignificant this disease appears to be. What it doesn’t show is context... how many people were expected to die in a “normal” year and what percentage that expected death rate increased.

But away from statistics and the way they are presented... you need to know just how quickly this disease filled up the ICUs, MAUs, PPUs and theatres which had been converted into ICU overspill!
We are currently stepping down cautiously, but we were full and over capacity for intensive care beds... why do people think that this is insignificant?

 

A quick check suggests that the UK’s excess death rate averaged out around 52% increase... the peak weeks the NHS was trying to cope with a 109% increase in death rates over the “normal”.

 

I always assumed that 'lockdown' was geared solely to slowing down the infection rate while the health services etc. ramped up to try and cope with the situation rather than trying to stop the virus. Let's face it, if the aim had really been to stop the virus in it's tracks all flights would have been grounded, no repatriations from infected countries, no being allowed to go down the supermarket or pharmacy for supplies. There would have been a period of time where people were allowed to get supplies to last them several weeks and obtain any neccessary medications for a certain period of time, the army would have been brought in to supply emergency rations to those who couldn't get to supermarkets etc. The army would have also been brought in to ensure that the lockdown was enforced without exception. Obviously there would have been a lot more than that but I am sure you catch my drift. Everything except the bare minimum of essential human interaction stopped for a period of time, say three or four weeks. That might have stood a chance of actually putting the virus down and also meant a much shorter lockdown period but the actual lockdown was a bit of a joke.

I don't think that anyone who isn't seriously wearing out their tinfoil hat believes that the virus wasn't serious or that it didn't cause unneccessary deaths but the question is were we better off being locked down, and still continuing to have localised lockdowns or would we have still been in almost the same situation if we had just carried on as normal. I don't seriously believe that that can be answered though until a long time down the line, if the dust ever settles.

 

Just wondering if you parhaps had more insight through TV reports. It seemed to be so bad a few weeks ago, but now we're only hearing about the more southerly areas.

 

As I recall, the phrase was initially “herd immunity” then suddenly the rates were calculated as going to be over whelming for the nhs... lockdown was brought in to “flatten the curve”.

I’ll leave it to the political types who know how to run a country to speculate on what should have been done and when it should have been done... but I know that the NHS workspace, at unit level, is supposed to have “business continuity planning” to cope with emergency situations... I would be interested in seeing what that meant at government level... ie a rapid pandemic is not surprise... what were the continuity plans at the top NHS level for such an event?

 

That may well be due to the age demographic/elderly density in southern us

 

Those figures were not given to diminish the affect that it had on those infected by Corona Virus or who are working to control it - it has been awful for those at the front line - and it is not insignificant. The figure was given precisely as stated - to give true perspective to what might have been cataclysmic. It hasn't been cataclysmic.