Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Dean Pomerleau]

57 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

What exactly are you claiming  they did to shield the vulnerable?

Yes Gordo. Italy and Spain had harder lockdowns than the US would ever consider and still they had high rates of mortality in nursing homes while the virus was widespread in the population.

If you can point to any country that has opened up and allowed the virus to spread in the general population while successfully shielding the vulnerable from getting sick and dying, I'd be happy to temper my skepticism. 

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but given how underfunded, understaffed and generally neglected eldercare facilities are in the US, I'm not optimistic that the rest of us can return to (semi-)normal while keeping the death toll down in nursing home and other congregate facilities.

Regarding the prevalence of completely asymptomic infections, I'll reiterate that when you see reports of high rates of asymptomatic infected individuals, it seems invariably that the estimate is made a single point in time which conflates pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Alternatively, they conflate asymptomatic with mildly-symptomatic individuals.

Studies that I have seen that have carefully followed people through their entire course of infection have found that the percent of people who remain completely symptom-free throughout their infection is on the order of 6-30%, depending on the population.  If there are longitudinal studies showing much higher numbers of completely asymptomic courses of the disease, I'd be happy to take a look.

--Dean

[Sibiriak]

Quote

 

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, appeared on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" on Tuesday, when he described the country's controversial approach.

"We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say," he said.

"We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us."

As of Tuesday, Sweden reported more than 2,700 COVID-19 deaths and more than 23,000 infections. That death toll is far higher than its Nordic neighbors' and many other countries that locked down.

Tegnell said there were good points to Sweden's unusual strategy, which largely relies on people to socially distance without fixed rules.

But he acknowledged: "I am not saying we are successful in all different ways. I mean our death toll is really something we worry a lot about."

He noted that Sweden had the same issue as many European countries in terms of a significant number of deaths in nursing homes,   ["As many as half of Europe's COVID-19 deaths were people in long-term care facilities"] even though visits to such homes have been banned in Sweden.

"It's very difficult to keep the disease away from there," he said. "Even if we are doing our best, it's obviously not enough."  But he said: "We are not putting anybody's lives above everybody else's lives — that's not the way we're working."

Tegnell said in late April that at least half of the country's deaths had been in nursing homes.

"We really thought our elderly homes would be much better at keeping this disease outside of them then they have actually been..."

 

[Ron Put]

51 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

Yes.

I dunno, not forcing nursing homes to accept Covid-19 patients would have been a great first step.

But now that we tried the China model of lock-downs and it didn't quite work, other than ruining the West's economies, perhaps Cuomo can follow another "Great Leader" and can order the shooting of cats and dogs in NY, like they do in Russia. 

Do you care to tell us how this method is working there?

[Sibiriak]

15 hours ago, Ron Put said:

my point was that significant pandemics occur relatively rarely in one's lifetime, usually once every one or two decade.  Which is why Covid-19 must be placed in proper perspective, not compared to relatively mild flu seasons...

 

And yet, for weeks on end you were telling us:

On 4/11/2020 at 8:35 AM, Ron Put said:

....Covid-19 seems to be looking more like a mild flu

[Ron Put]

22 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

 

And yet, for weeks on end you were telling us:

Yep. Covid-19 has killed just over 300,000 people around the world.  And the Western economies are ruined, because of hysteria and political opportunism.

The 2017-2018 flu season killed 1,200,000 people around the world. The 1969 flu killed over 200,000 in the US and close to 2,500,000 people worldwide, adjusted for population.  And nobody locked down or sent soldiers on the streets to force a quarantine on the healthy. So, what's your point?

As to Sweden, their Covid-19 death toll is 3,700, largely among the very elderly.  To place it in perspective, annually between 90,000 and 100,000 Swedes die of all causes, including about 4,000 who die from the flu.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Ron Put

[Dean Pomerleau]

On the topic of protecting the vulnerable, it seems that Canada is doing badly as well. A new report has found 81% of Canada's covid deaths have been in nursing homes. 

We shouldn’t have soldiers taking care of seniors,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly said last month, after the country’s military was deployed to help hard-hit facilities in Ontario and Quebec. “In the weeks and months to come, we will all have to ask tough questions about how it came to this.”

In one facility outside of Toronto, 100 people – including 40 staff members – are currently battling the coronavirus, while another 57 residents have died from it, the Post reports.

Advocates told the newspaper that cramped buildings and traveling employees – many of which work part-time shifts at several facilities to make a living – are two factors that have contributed to the severity of the outbreaks inside Canada’s nursing homes.

[Sibiriak]

18 minutes ago, Ron Put said:

perhaps Cuomo can follow another "Great Leader" and can order the shooting of cats and dogs in NY, like they do in Russia. 

Longstanding Russian policies toward homeless animals are really bad-- but they have little to do with the coronavirus crisis or any "Great Leader" populism.   I'm deeply involved in this issue personally,  as I set up and oversee a shelter which currently takes care of  over  140 rescued dogs.   Without going into great detail,  the situation is basically this: homeless dogs are a major problem in many Russian cities,  but municipal governments generally do not want to spend the money necessary to deal with the problem in a humane fashion.  Most localities lack shelters and the rest that are common in countries such as  the U.S.   Municipal authorities quite often resort to using contractors to kill homeless animals,  usually by poisoning.  And of course,  they would jump on any good justification for those longstanding policies.  Animal protection groups have become more active in recent years,  have made some gains,   but there is a long, long way to go.   I could go into much more detail,  but it's obviously not relevant to this thread.

 

[Sibiriak]

1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

what's your point?

My point is,  you contradict yourself when you say

    " significant pandemics occur relatively rarely in one's lifetime, usually once every one or two decade.  Which is why Covid-19 must be placed in proper perspective, not  compared to relatively mild flu seasons"

while steadfastly maintaining that

   "Covid-19 seems to be looking more like a mild flu"     "Yep"

In any case,  arguments about severe lockdowns aside ( I don't support them),  Covid-19 is NOT like a "mild flu",  not by a long shot,   and it's a shame that your views are so rigid and ideology-driven that you can't even admit that simple fact.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Gordo]

You guys have a good point, it may not be possible to protect nursing homes unless the workers self isolate (which is hard if not impossible to ask) if asymptotic transmission is a significant factor. Workers could however do 3x daily “symptom checks” (this should not be a big deal really), they could also wear PPE and spray their gloved hands in isopropyl alcohol after touching anyone. They could cut off visitors, require obsessive cleaning and hygiene, etc.  Prefer hiring staff that has already recovered and has antibodies, even better (but there may not be enough of them out there yet).

The Sweden death graph is “weird”, clearly trending down over the last month but very “spikey”:

I’m not convinced one way or the other yet, but I do think the higher end death predictions will be proven wrong, however that may just be due to therapeutics and vaccines. 
 

The psychology aspect of lockdowns is interesting to watch, I don’t endorse one side or the other, just fascinated:

CORONAVIRUS

Psychotherapist: Lockdown Zealots Are Behaving Like Cult Members

[Sibiriak]

In the U.S. at least,  the lockdown zealotry, which reaches truly hysterical levels at times, is a political disease,  not just a psychological one--a manifestation of the   pathological political  tribalism rampant in the country right now. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[mccoy]

35 minutes ago, Gordo said:

The Sweden death graph is “weird”, clearly trending down over the last month but very “spikey”:

Gordo, if you notice, the spikes follow a 7-days wavelength, so they are probably due to data processing (no processing on weekends, spikes on later days of the week as soon as data are processed and officially confirmed). Something similar, although less blatant, has occurred in Italy

[Ron Put]

1 hour ago, Sibiriak said:

My point is,  you contradict yourself when you say

    " significant pandemics occur relatively rarely in one's lifetime, usually once every one or two decade.  Which is why Covid-19 must be placed in proper perspective, not  compared to relatively mild flu seasons"

while steadfastly maintaining that

   "Covid-19 seems to be looking more like a mild flu"     "Yep"

In any case,  arguments about severe lockdowns aside ( I don't support them),  Covid-19 is NOT like a "mild flu",  not by a long shot,   and it's a shame that your views are so rigid and ideology-driven that you can't even admit that simple fact.

Sibiriak, first let me commend you on your work on the shelter.  Russia can be a tough place for stray animals, but it is (very) slowly getting better.

I am also glad that you do not support lock-downs.

I do stand by my comment.  Covid-19 is asymptomatic, or mild, in well over 90% of those who are infected based on evidence I posted above.  The worldwide number of deaths is still at about a quarter of the deaths from the 2018 flu, and much lower than past major flu pandemics, such as the 1969 or 1957 ones, which killed approximately seven to nine times more people worldwide than Covid-19 has so far.

Now, keep in mind that we actually have flu vaccines which work to varying degree, thus the flu would be likely twice as deadly as Covid-19 if no vaccine existed.  Italy has among the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, which may have contributed to its higher death toll.

I hope this helps explain why I still do not agree with the claims that Covid-19 is not like the flu, and definitely not "not by a long shot."

Edited May 19, 2020 by Ron Put

[Dean Pomerleau]

2 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

In the U.S. at least,  the lockdown zealotry, which reaches truly hysterical levels at times, is a political disease,  not just a psychological one--a manifestation of the   pathological political  tribalism rampant in the country right now. 

What is meant by "lockdown zealotry"?  The fact is that nowhere in the US is there a true lockdown order under which you can't leave your house (like formerly in Wuhan) or you can't leave your house without government issued documents showing where you are going and why (like formerly? in Italy).

And are there really people who want to stay locked down until we get a vaccine? That seems like a strawman. If such people exist I'm not aware of them.

Instead I think virtually everyone wants to be able to get past the stay-at-home "orders" that are still in place in some parts of the US and which are really more like suggestions at this point since no one is getting fined or imprisoned for simply leaving their home and I'm not aware that anyone every was. The only question is when and how to do it to minimize total harm, including economic as well as psychological.

There are people (including me) who think it would likely minimize total harm if we had a frickin' plan to effectively test, trace and isolate new cases before opening non-essential businesses like theaters, gyms, dine-in restaurants, hair salons, etc and allowing large public gatherings. That is how other countries have gotten a handle on their outbreaks (e.g. South Korea, Taiwan, Australia) and how others are planning to (e.g. Germany). But our federal response has been so dysfunctional that a rational, science-based approach like this seems almost inconceivable.

So instead the debate seems to have devolved into those who want to damn the torpedoes and open now (even indemnifying businesses against covid-related lawsuits if patrons or employees get sick) vs. those who want to move more cautiously, with a plan in place for reducing the spread and for what to do if cases start to spike again. 

--Dean

[Mike41]

 

3 hours ago, Gordo said:

Gordo posted

Psychotherapist: Lockdown Zealots Are Behaving Like Cult Members

interesting but even the article misses the point IMO! IT DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT PREACHES AGAINST. HA HA! IAC, this thread is an example of what our culture cannot seem to resist doing. We get into trench warfare and cannot budge once we are in the trench.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Mike41

[Gordo]

1 hour ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

There are people (including me) who think it would likely minimize total harm if we had a frickin' plan to effectively test, trace and isolate new cases before opening non-essential businesses

CDC:

Contact Tracing : Part of a Multipronged Approach to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic

It says in bold "The time to start building the trained workforce is now."

Maybe everyone that is unemployed should call their local health department and sign up?

I think "symptom/temp checks" at places of employment/schools might be useful too. 

 

Print Page

 

[Dean Pomerleau]

Here is a short-term prediction: Hydroxychloroquine will be shown to be relatively safe and effective (or at least very promising) as a prophylactic within the week. 

Trump starting taking hydroxychloroquine after talking to the UMinn scientist conducting a large prophylactic trial and who says he is analyzing the data and will be releasing the results of his study within a week. 

If the scientist's data shows hydroxychloroquine was ineffective or dangerous, he would have felt obliged to share that with Trump (or Trump's doctor) and Trump wouldn't have started taking it.  So since Trump decided to start taking the drug after talking with him, I think we can assume the results of the study will almost certainly be positive.

This will be good news for both the future death toll and the economy. But at the same time it will have a downside for those who think Trump is a dangerous baffoon, since he will (reasonably) claim that his consistent optimism about hydroxychloroquine has been justified, he knows more than the doctors and scientists (NOT true), and that the left-leaning media has been both wrong to warn against using it (which is the right thing to do until the study becomes public) and out to get him (probably true).

In other words Trump will use this vindiction as another opportunity to polarize the country and bash the left, which honestly deserves some bashing for using the preliminary failure of hydroxychloroquine to help very sick patients in order to criticize Trump for promoting it. The left went all-in on the "hydroxychloroquine is worthless and probably dangerous" narrative to make Trump look bad and now it is going to come back to bite them...

There is no nuance in our public discourse, only entrenched positions and an "us vs them" mentality. 

--Dean

[Ron Put]

3 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

What is meant by "lockdown zealotry"?  The fact is that nowhere in the US is there a true lockdown order under which you can't leave your house (like formerly in Wuhan) or you can't leave your house without government issued documents showing where you are going and why (like formerly? in Italy)....

What is meant by "lockdown zealotry" is unprecedented, mandatory lock-downs and sweeping business closures, effectively crashishing the local economies -- all without good data and without allowing a reasoned debate. 

There were plenty of dissenting voices, but the media, which was in opposition in much of the West, chose to promote the WHO "containment" message (based on WHO's claim that Covid-19 is NOT contagious and thus "containable" through a China style lock-down).  As the media and opposition politicians attacked the governing parties for "lack of leadership," all reason went out of the window -- the only politically expedient option was to go along with the "containment, NOT mitigation" mantra, or be personally blamed for every death, every hour. 

Experts who disagreed were pilloried, their credentials, knowledge, and even sanity, attacked.  There were successful campaigns to censor their interviews on social media, too.  The end result is that disagreement with the lock-down policies became a career-killer and made socially unacceptable and professionally dangerous.

This is what zealotry means.  It was never a black and white issue, and I don't know of anyone who was not supportive of reasonable measures, like those introduced in California before the lock-down, or those in Sweden.  It was the zealots who made this into an "us vs them" issue, and we as a society are much worse for it.
----

 

3 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

So instead the debate seems to have devolved into those who want to damn the torpedoes and open now (even indemnifying businesses against covid-related lawsuits if patrons or employees get sick) vs. those who want to move more cautiously

No, this is the way you see the debate, because you see those who disagree with you as "enemies" with torpedoes. 

Most understand that opening up will take some time, because people have been scared and it will take a while before rational behavior returns.  As the former Swedish chief epidemiologist Johan Giesecke noted, none of the politicians who rammed the lock-downs gave any thought on how they will open up.

We will open up.  There will be a second wave, likely more severe in places with tighter lock-downs.  More people will die in the Fall, too, because Covid-19 is likely to return, just like all the other coronaviruses.  Yet, compared to other major pandemics, like 1969 or 1957, this is a relatively mild one.

But, many people have died because they were afraid to go to the emergency with stroke or heart attack symptoms.  Since you like "models," some predict 70,000 suicides in the US over the next year, because of the lock-downs, the devastated economy, business failures and job losses.  And all this is ultimately on the "zealots."

Edited May 20, 2020 by Ron Put

[Sibiriak]

4 hours ago, Ron Put said:

I still do not agree with the claims that Covid-19 is not like the flu...

 

Ron,   the formulation I objected to was specifically  "like a mild flu".    Key word: "mild."     

I'm surprised you are still standing by that statement.   Covid-19 is clearly not best described as "like a mild flu."

Edited May 20, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Sibiriak]

3 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

What is meant by "lockdown zealotry"?

I personally was referring to how many supporters of strict lockdown enforcement have taken to twitter etc. to launch vicious, vitriolic, personal attacks on everyone and anyone who dares question the wisdom of such strict lockdowns.   These attacks are almost invariably infused with the hatred and abhorrence many "liberals"  feel toward Trump-supporting "deplorables"-- a manifestation of the   pathological political  tribalism rampant in the country right now.    Goes both ways, of course. 

[Ron Put]

28 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

 

Ron,   the formulation I objected to was specifically  "not like a mild flu".    Key word: "mild."     

I'm surprised you are still standing by that statement.  

Well, I was referring to how it affects over 90% of those who are infected, with mild to no symptoms at all.  I took it straight out of Sweden's former chief epidemiologist's mouth (see the link above).

But OK, even based on your interpretation, how do you personally define it?

The 2017-2018 flu season killed 1,200,000 people around the world, right?  This is a fact.  Yet 2017-2018 was not a major pandemic, like 1957 or 1969.  It was just a "bad flu season."

Covid-19 has killed just over 300,000 people around the world, right?  Now, since this is about four times less than the number of deaths from the 2017-2018 flu season (and it's unlikely to ever surpass it), how would you classify Covid-19?  It cannot be like a "bad flu" since the death toll is much smaller. An average flu kills about 500,000-600,000 worldwide, according to the CDC. So, if by August or so Covid-19 has killed less than half a million worldwide, then it will cause less deaths than the average flu.  Hence, "mild."

But, I'll even take "like a bad flu."  Which still does not justify the lock-downs and the crashing of the economy.  Or the nonsense about contact-tracing and the presumably mandatory isolations which would follow.
 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Ron Put

[Sibiriak]

[Ron Put]

2 minutes ago, Sibiriak said:

...

I can't argue with this.

But I hope what I wrote above helps clarify why many are angry, just as many are fearful. And, of course, the "mild" bit.

[Sibiriak]

I was wondering if Trump was taking zinc along with his hydroxychloroquine.  Apparently he is.   Smart man. 😈

[mccoy]

16 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Yep. Covid-19 has killed just over 300,000 people around the world.  And the Western economies are ruined, because of hysteria and political opportunism.

The 2017-2018 flu season killed 1,200,000 people around the world. The 1969 flu killed over 200,000 in the US and close to 2,500,000 people worldwide, adjusted for population.  And nobody locked down or sent soldiers on the streets to force a quarantine on the healthy. So, what's your point?

As to Sweden, their Covid-19 death toll is 3,700, largely among the very elderly.  To place it in perspective, annually between 90,000 and 100,000 Swedes die of all causes, including about 4,000 who die from the flu.

If we stick to science, You are citing numbers which everyone knows are not accurate at all, especially the Covid19 deaths. Actuarial data from all-cause mortality are by far more reliable, actually, they are almost 100% reliable in western societies. And these data support the actual serious lethality of SARSCOV-2, in certain age intervals.

If we stick to opinions on political strategies, they have an higher degree of subjectiveness and are more open to personal opinions.

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by mccoy

[KHashmi316]

Okay, class, schools are shut but distant learning is the new norm and HOMEWORK is assigned and now due ....

The following infographics were featured in the latest (June 2020) issue of Discover Magazine:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/historys-most-deadly-pandemics-from-the-antonine-plague-to-covid-19

Large sized image of above

Concentrating on the second graphic (Death Toll; note COVID-19 data up to Apr 6, 2020), please list all the reasons why this presentations like this -- so common in pop sci -- may be inaccurate, irrelevant, sensationalistic, etc.

E.g.,

(1) COVID-19 deaths age group typically over >60yo (compared to Black Plague, when most people didn't live that long)

(2) Improvements in science, nutrition, communication (even compared to 1918 Spanish flu, when there were no ventilators, or antibiotics)

(3) etc. (add your own thoughts !)