Covid-19 News

I have noticed something about the stats for the UK and the US, and some other countries. Daily new cases are not declining, but deaths per day are. I don't know what to make of this. I would have to see more detailed data to understand. But perhaps it means there is more testing and they are finding more cases, but the total number of actual cases is declining. So there are fewer deaths. That would be good news. See:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

I considered the possibility that this is caused by many of the the most vulnerable elderly people dying, leaving only younger patients who die at a lower rate. I don't think that can be the case in the UK or the US. Not enough elderly people have died to have that effect. Perhaps it could be the case in some cities in Italy. In the UK, 500 people per million have died (0.05%). People over 65 are 18% of the British population (~12 million), so only a small number of them have died.

The absolute number of British people who have died is ~32,000. That is about as many as the number of civilians killed in the WWII German bombing blitz.

Quote from Alan Smith

50,000+ said to be the real death toll...

Oh, how I wish American reporters would talk to U.S. politicians the way Piers Morgan talked to that nitwit! Diatribe my ass.

Quote from Mark U

Roughly 0.9 percent of the population dies every year in the US.

That is not possible. If that were the case, the average lifetime would be ~100 years, given the fact that the population is increasing at 0.6% per year, and many of the additional people are adults who will not live 80 more years. The average lifetime is 79 years. So, 1.27% of people die per year.

Quote from Shane D.

You keep saying you understand that the cure can't be worse than the disease, but then go on to dwell only on the fatality numbers associated with the disease. Personally I think you only give lip service to those who have been, and will be devastated by the shut downs. All you really care about is dramatizing the death toll on one side of the equation. That sounds like politics to me. The same kind of politics being played out on a national level with the media.

If you really cared about all of those suffering through this, you would be a little more balanced in your arguments.

You seem to think the lockdown was a decision made by politicians, based on a cost-benefit analysis. And that we should now rejigger the analysis to take into account the suffering caused by the lockdown. You are wrong about that. Politicians, business leaders and the rest of us are not in control here. We do not make these decisions. We did not impose the lockdown, and we cannot undo it. The pathogen is in charge. Nature calls the shots here. The lockdown in Georgia began before the governor announced it. It was already at peak numbers when he finally came round. It has not decreased much since he declared victory and undid it. People are locking themselves down because they do not want to risk getting a very serious disease that may leave them short of breath the rest of their lives, even if it is unlikely to kill them.

There is only one way the lockdown can be eased in the U.S. We must do what they did in Korea and Japan: extensive testing, case tracing, warning people who may be infected, and quarantining people. We must extend healthcare to cover illegal aliens who are afraid to go to the hospital because they fear being deported. (They fear that for good reason.) If we do not take these steps, as soon as the lockdown ends, we will be back in the situation we were in mid-March, with cases doubling every 3 or 4 days. Within a month, we will have ~200,000 new cases a day, and the hospitals will be overwhelmed. People will go back into lockdown whether the government says to or not. People are not idiots who want to die in a tent outside a hospital.

In Massachusetts, New York and other states they are trying to use the Korean methods. In Georgia and other GOP states, there are no plans to do anything like that, and no money has been allocated for it. The Federal government has not lifted a finger to do what must be done. Perhaps we will soon have half the country (the Blue States) partially open and functional, while the Red States have thousands of people dying at home and in tents, and the economy destroyed for the next 5 years. I do not think that outcome is likely because there is too much mobility in the U.S. The epidemic could not be controlled in Italy until the whole country went into lockdown. Perhaps, if the Italians had used Korean methods, it might have been controlled. It is hard to say.

Meanwhile, the situation in Japan is greatly improved thanks to testing and case tracing. They are back down to ~30 new cases per day. Their voluntary lockdown continues, but as before, many people are ignoring it. Once again, this proves that the methods work. The number of people tested in Korea and Japan is actually lower than many other countries:

Korea, 13,000 tests per million

Japan 1,700

U.S. 29,000

Italy 43,000

UK 27,000

They don't need to test as many people, because they know who is likely to be infected. Testing is necessary but not sufficient. It does no good to test if you do not act on the results. Some other countries have criticised Japan for "not doing enough tests." That makes no sense. Obviously they are doing enough. Why should they do more tests, now that only ~30 people per day are being infected?

Quote from JedRothwell

U.S. are dying of diseases other than the coronavirus because they are afraid to go to the hospital

exactly.

Quote from JedRothwell

. A lockdown in the UK is not likely to kill many people

your reply is like you did not read the article this was in response to. 3000 deaths a week seem hard to accept to me.

again reference: https://www.independent.co.uk/…id-29-cases-a9504911.html

The estimate in the article for the US seem high (at least to me) at twice the values (virus+collateral) . The UK numbers show less than 11K virus+collaterial vs 9K virus).

"it is clear is that patients are not coming to the hospital for cardiovascular emergencies"

"But health experts say such counts do not show the full devastation of the virus because they do not include deaths from conditions such as heart failure, strokes or cancer of people who failed to get treatment, either because they were too scared to go to hospital, or else their appointment was cancelled as health departments were obliged to halt non-urgent procedures."

The lockdown certainly causes deaths due to deaths other than directly COVID19. There may also be long range effects due to appointment delays.

Good read on “Vitamin D” from Northwestern.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r…/2020/05/200507121353.htm

Quote from JedRothwell

That is not possible. If that were the case, the average lifetime would be ~100 years, given the fact that the population is increasing at 0.6% per year, and many of the additional people are adults who will not live 80 more years. The average lifetime is 79 years. So, 1.27% of people die per year.

Better to take if from actual numbers. See https://www.macrotrends.net/co…/united-states/death-rate

It is more like .89 percent of the US population dies each year, and the number is rising (due to the baby boomer population). Given a population of about 330 million, that's about 2.9 million deaths in 2020, not counting what Covid-19 will do. My guess of mortality rising from about 0.9 percent to 1.1 percent in 2020 yields an extra death count of about 700,000 Americans from Covid-19 in 2020, which surely is an overestimation. Should have done my work on paper.

Quote from Alan Smith

There may have already been 55,000 deaths relating to coronavirus in the UK at a ‘cautious estimate’, experts have said

~32,000 is the Worldmeters number.

So it is worse than the civilian deaths from the Blitz in absolute numbers. Granted, the population is larger so it is a smaller percent. On the other hand, the Blitz lasted for 9 months, and this has only been 2 months. The people who say "this is no big deal" and "we should get back to business as usual and stop being so afraid" would never have said that about the Blitz. If 55,000 British people had been killed by falling bombs instead of a virus, no one would say they are overreacting by staying in bomb shelters.

In the U.S., the administration's own projections show 200,000 infections per day, and 3,000 deaths per day by the end of this month. These projections were secret, but they were leaked to the New York Times. The administration denied it, and says they have other projections, but they have not revealed them. The 200,000 infections per day is what you get when you do nothing to prevent the epidemic from spreading. No lockdown, insufficient testing, and no case tracing. It is the inevitable outcome from the administration's policy of doing nothing. I do not think we will see that nightmare scenario, because New York and other states will prevent it in large parts of the country. We will see it in Georgia unless people are frightened and go back into lockdown on their own, which I think many will do.

3,000 deaths per day, for a year or so until a vaccine is available, would be ~550,000. That is about the same number as the dead in the Civil War, and much more than WWI or WWII. If a foreign army were invading the U.S., and killing 3,000 people per day -- or even ~1,500, as is happening now -- I do not think any administration would declare victory, claim they have done a great job, and say we should all get back to business as usual. I don't think Shane D. would be saying we should reconsider the cost of fighting the invading army because the war is impoverishing us, so let's just surrender. Let them kill as many people as they like.

In point of fact, the administration's projections stop on June 1 at 3,000 deaths per day. As if history will come to an end that day. The real numbers would increase at the same rate until ~60% of the population is infected. So in another month there would be 30,000 deaths per day. Does anyone think we can go about business as usual with that happening? Do you think the grocery stores and food supply chains would be work when there are that many deaths, and millions of people are clinging to life at home, without so much as an oxygen bottle? That is the inevitable, unavoidable, natural outcome from the administration's policy. That's what Shane D. and others advocate when they say "herd immunity" must be achieved without a vaccine. That is how things were for weeks in 1918, and how they must be again, without either a lockdown or the Korean high-tech modern case tracing and quarantine.

Either you control the pandemic and keep deaths far below herd immunity, or you have millions of dead over the next 6 to 12 months. There is no middle ground. The virus will not compromise or be reasonable. It will not agree to "business as usual." It will not agree to infect only lucky, strong, people who get mild symptoms. We cannot know in advance which healthy looking 25-year-old will end up losing her legs, or permanently unable to climb a staircase. We know that obese people, old people, poor people and black people will suffer more than the general population, but that still leaves millions of apparently healthy people who will suffer, so even the healthy white people will not risk getting the disease.

Quote from oldguy

"it is clear is that patients are not coming to the hospital for cardiovascular emergencies"

"But health experts say such counts do not show the full devastation of the virus because they do not include deaths from conditions such as heart failure, strokes or cancer of people who failed to get treatment, either because they were too scared to go to hospital, or else their appointment was cancelled as health departments were obliged to halt non-urgent procedures."

The lockdown certainly causes deaths due to deaths other than directly COVID19. There may also be long range effects due to appointment delays.

The lockdown is not stopping people from coming to the hospital for cardiovascular emergencies! No government has said "you must stay at home, even if you are having a heart attack." People are not going to the hospital with cardiovascular emergencies because they are afraid they will be infected with the coronavirus in the hospital.

The appointment delays are also not being caused by the lockdown. They are caused by the hospitals being overwhelmed. The lockdown has reduced that problem, not increased it. Without the lockdown there would be more delays, not fewer.

Quote from oldguy

your reply is like you did not read the article this was in response to. 3000 deaths a week seem hard to accept to me.

3000 deaths per day is what the Trump administration projects for June 1. That's not my number. I, too, find it hard to accept. I doubt it will be that bad. I hope that New York and other Blue States will keep the numbers below that. The Trump administration has not revealed any plans to prevent that from happening, or to prevent the totals from increasing to 30,000 per day a month later.

I read other articles saying that people are not going to hospitals because they afraid of catching the coronavirus, not because of the lockdown. Those are reports from Georgia and Louisiana. People should be afraid of getting the disease in a hospital.

Quote from JedRothwell

The appointment delays are also not being caused by the lockdown. They are caused by the hospitals being overwhelmed. The lockdown has reduced that problem, not increased it. Without the lockdown there would be more delays, not fewer.

You are wrong.

My 90 year old mother has had several appointments canceled because the hospital has been most shut down NOT over whelmed! Because all elective procedures were basically banned state wide but the region she lives in has almost zero cases, the hospital could not remain fully open. This is the case in much of the US except New York, Chicago etc.

My 70 year old sister had to have a shot given in the parking lot because the lock down procedures did not allow her into the emergency room due to non-life threatening diagnosis. She is extremely allergic to poison ivy and got a bad case of it. She gets extreme blisters and rash. The only thing that will alleviate it is a shot. Calling the ER (her regular clinic was closed due to elective procedures) she was met in the parking lot and given a shot in the rear in her car.

This is stupid but absolutely first hand, true knowledge.

I personally know of several canceled and delayed appointments due SOLEY to the lock down orders that caused hospitals and clinics to shut down floors, reduce hours or close completely.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/3…ls-medical-practices.html

https://www.modernhealthcare.c…e-double-whammy-hospitals

https://www.beckershospitalrev…es-top-400-000-a-day.html

Quote from Shane D.

A crippled economy has far more potential to kill than the virus ever did.

If we take no steps to contain the virus, and prevent herd immunity levels of infection, the virus will kill millions of people. That would be far more people than were killed in the Great Depression by malnutrition, suicide and other direct causes.

Quote from Shane D.

Politicians are the only ones who can turn on/off the economy via the authority invested in them when they took office.

Politicians did not impose the lockdown in Georgia. They did not turn off the economy. Recent statistics from the state and Federal sources show that the lockdown began voluntarily weeks before the lockdown, and businesses were already closing down. (I can't find the stats, but that's what they show.) Most businesses have not opened up, and even when they have, customers have not returned, despite the governor and others telling them they can if they want to. The malls are deserted. The Atlanta airport has lost 85% of its business.

https://www.ajc.com/business/h…s/pC08a7HGbsNZmoh16uCBbP/

Do you think people will get back on airplanes because the politicians say it is okay now? Because Trump says it? Most people have decided for themselves that it is not worth risking your health to eat at a fast food restaurant.

Business will not reopen, and life will not return to normal, unless we control the virus the way they have done in Korea. We must reduce total infections to a few hundred a day. Or the economy will be strangled the way it was in the early 1930s.

Life is not normal in Japan, but it is not paralyzed, either.

Quote from Shane D.

Yes, the initial lockdown was necessary, as almost everyone would admit.

The lockdown could have been ended safely if the government had taken steps to increase testing, case tracing and quarantine. When the lockdown began, I assumed that was the plan. The Federal and Georgia state governments did none of those things. So, if we end the lockdown, in a few weeks we will be right back where we were, with cases doubling every 3 days. The lockdown will have accomplished nothing, and saved no lives. It remains as necessary now as it was in mid-March, because the government did nothing. All that money that people lost by staying at home, all that bailout money, and money given to the airlines -- it was all wasted. It was thrown away by Trump and other leaders. Two trillion dollars, flushed down the toilet! They bought time with that money, but they squandered the time.

Unless the government takes action, we will have to remain in the lockdown for a year, until there is a vaccine. People will remain in lockdown, whether you like it or not, or whether Trump and Gov. Kemp say we should or not. They will remain unless they are physically starving. Even if they go back to work, there will be no customers. People will not risk their lives, any more than they did in 1918, or during the Blitz.

Some people will go out, of course. The mayor of Atlanta was distressed to see thousands of young people crowding some of the trendy the streets and stores this weekend. Many of those people were not wearing masks. They will do that until they or their friends die, or end up coughing up blood for months. Idiotic young people will do that. Not anyone with common sense, knowledge of history, or who has been seriously ill in a hospital.

Quote from Bob#2

My 70 year old sister had to have a shot given in the parking lot because the lock down procedures did not allow her into the emergency room due to non-life threatening diagnosis.

I have had the same problem myself. However, the newspapers report that many hospitals ER are open but patients are not coming because they are afraid. That's in Georgia and Louisiana, as I said.

In sane countries, such as Japan, this is not happening. Because some hospitals have been designated to treat coronavirus, while others do not. The others refuse coronavirus patients. They remain open to other patients, and emergencies. This policy has led to some ugly incidents, such as a pregnant woman who returned from Tokyo to her parents' house and went into labor. Several hospitals refused to accept her because they feared she might be infected. That's very unlikely, given the low rates of infection in Japan.

Quote from Shane D.

I have noticed you are agreeable to reopening...but only with the testing protocols you endorse. That is fine, but there is widespread disagreement as to how effective a wholesale, across the board program (Korean style) would be, as compared to targeted. The amount of testing has been growing rapidly in almost every state in any case.

You are confused. Not your fault: the mass media has confused this issue, and you don't get to watch Japanese news the way I do. The U.S., Italy, the UK and other EU countries already test far more people per capita than they do in Korea or Japan. There is no "wholesale, across the board" testing in Korea or Japan. There never was. That was never the plan. There were two kinds of testing: 1. Testing available to anyone who wanted it; 2. Testing targeted by the epidemiologists and field workers to trace possible infections. That is, calling people and saying, "we think you may be exposed. Please come in for a test."

Testing alone, without follow-up and warnings, will do no good. This was reported by the WHO in February. It has been widely discussed in the Japanese mass media.

Quote from Shane D.

So the administration has accomplished a lot, and I give them credit for that.

The administration projects 200,000 new cases a day, and 3,000 deaths, by June 1. That means they have accomplished nothing. It means they plan to let the epidemic take its natural course, as if the people of the U.S. were a flock of birds. By its own standards, and its own projections, the administration has accomplished nothing, and it plans to do nothing.

Quote from JedRothwell

I have noticed something about the stats for the UK and the US, and some other countries. Daily new cases are not declining, but deaths per day are. I don't know what to make of this. I would have to see more detailed data to understand. But perhaps it means there is more testing and they are finding more cases, but the total number of actual cases is declining. So there are fewer deaths. That would be good news. See:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

I considered the possibility that this is caused by many of the the most vulnerable elderly people dying, leaving only younger patients who die at a lower rate. I don't think that can be the case in the UK or the US. Not enough elderly people have died to have that effect. Perhaps it could be the case in some cities in Italy. In the UK, 500 people per million have died (0.05%). People over 65 are 18% of the British population (~12 million), so only a small number of them have died.

The absolute number of British people who have died is ~32,000. That is about as many as the number of civilians killed in the WWII German bombing blitz.

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Jed, there are a finite number of tests. They are opening up tests to more people - some of whom may be asymptomatic or mild symptoms but test positive. Hence on average the cases found are less severe.

Although in UK number of real infections is declining it is doing this very slowly, as shown by the real but slow decrease in deaths.

Quote from JedRothwell

The administration projects 200,000 new cases a day, and 3,000 deaths, by June 1. That means they have accomplished nothing. It means they plan to let the epidemic take its natural course, as if the people of the U.S. were a flock of birds. By its own standards, and its own projections, the administration has accomplished nothing, and it plans to do nothing.

Are they really saying this? I guess it depends as always on how you define a case (is that only those going to hospital, or those testing positive but with no symptoms). If no change, that is 5X the current infection rate. It seems high and maybe difficult to manage? 6 months at that rate and it is through the entire population.

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

The virulent attack on HCQ is disturbing. I hope The Media, NIH and CDC are not putting money before lives, but the financial control that NIH/CDC exercise over Academia and the political control Pharma exerts over NIH/CDC is troubling --

You are the cattle: Nothing more, Americans did choose to live on animal farm! Happy 1984!