Non Political COVID-19 virus thread

[Diggs]

Assuming the actual incident rate is 20x the confirmed case rate, COVID19 also has about a 0.1% mortality rate.

??? COVID-19 was estimated at a 2% mortality rate but is currently estimated at closer to 5% with the US at about half that rate. I'm not sure where your 20x rate comes from. I think that is a bit high.

 

[backwoodsman]

??? COVID-19 was estimated at a 2% mortality rate but is currently estimated at closer to 5% with the US at about half that rate. I'm not sure where your 20x rate comes from. I think that is a bit high.

Most people can't get tested, even if they're sick. There's not (yet) a test that can tell if someone has already had it and recovered. For most, the symptoms are mild and not specific to COVID-19, so there's no way for most to know whether or not they have it if they're sick. Considering all that, it seems very reasonable to think actual cases could easily be 20x or more the number of confirmed cases being reported. Of course, that would make the death rate drastically lower than what's being reported.

 

[britechguy]

@backwoodsman

You and I are on the same page. I have been saying for a long while now until or unless we have some idea of active incidence COUPLED WITH data on prevalence of those who have had and recovered from COVID-19, we have an utterly incomplete picture..

I can see no reason to believe, given the number of individuals who have tested positive who were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, that there are not many millions more that fit that category. The problem is, at the moment there is no way to confirm it.

Apparently there is a test that can detect antibodies to COVID-19 in the recovered, but those tests are currently more rare than those for testing for the active virus. But if we're ever going to get a handle on this thing, we're going to have to have extensive, and I mean really, really extensive, testing among the general population to see who may have already had it and never known it.

We're flying almost blind right now with only the smallest scraps of the actual data we need to understand where we actually are and could be going. The current restrictions, by all anecdotal evidence, are still completely necessary, but we need a way to actually determine when it may be safe to back off, particularly in regions that are currently hotspots. You can be absolutely sure that the prevalence of infection with COVID-19 in those areas far exceeds the incidence of disease symptoms from COVID-19. And many may never show symptoms or have symptoms so mild that they do not know they've even had it.

 

[Sky-Knight]

It's absolutely critical to know the reported death rate, is a proportion of the HOSPITALIZED population. That is a smaller group than the confirmed infected population, which is drastically smaller than the unconfirmed infected population.

Estimates of the real infection base are 10-20 times more people than the confirmed infected numbers. So if you take the number of deaths as a known, you can simply divide it by the estimated total infected to get a far more realistic total mortality rate. This rate will spike if our hospitals actually hit capacity, which they haven't done globally just yet.

Almost 40% of the people that get this thing, don't even show symptoms... that only makes real tracking of this mess that much harder, when you combine this reality with the known terrible testing rates you get far more accurate numbers. Also, you can estimate based on South Korea, which has done a far better job testing, and isn't trying to lie to us like China did. Take either road, and the numbers I just put out show themselves. I didn't come up with this myself, it came straight from several medical journals.

But @britechguy is completely correct, we have too little data to know. All we have are estimates based on scraps.

The only thing we really know, it's not the death rate that makes this thing so scary, it's the infection rate. The simple fact that everyone can get this all at once, because it's basically a common cold in that regard. Even if only 0.1% die, that's still a number measured in thousands at least when you're working with 40-70% of the total population getting it.

US Total Pop 327.2 million
40% of that is 139.88 million
0.1% of that is 327,200.

And yet, Johns Hopkins is expecting the US to lose only 97,000 when the dust clears at this time.

Data here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

[Sky-Knight]

 

[Sky-Knight]

 

[TechLady]

Data links:

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

An interactive visualization of the exponential spread of COVID-19

The COVID Tracking Project

 

[britechguy]

And, on the subject of ventilators and their use, this New York Times article, What You Should Know Before You Need a Ventilator, by Dr. Kathryn Dreger, is required reading.

I'm a speech-language pathologist, and although my personal practice history does not include trach and vent weaning, I know what it involves. The information offered by Dr. Dreger is accurate, and most people, even those who have advance medical directives, have likely never really contemplated what the use of mechanical ventilation involves and what it often entails afterward.

Working from a base of knowledge when it comes to making decisions regarding life support you might want, or not want, before the situation arises is always a good thing, and will continue to be so even after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.

 

[GTP]

From tomorrow (Monday) Woolies and Coles are limiting the amount of people in the supermarket to 8.

I'll be able to see the queues from here.
Everyone standing 2 meters apart should make a queue at least a kilometre long.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-04/coles-woolworths-customer-limit-covid19-coronavirus/12121740

 

[Porthos]

Priority Access for Healthcare Workers and First Responders
Costco is temporarily allowing priority access to our warehouses for Costco members who are healthcare workers and first responders such as police officers, EMTs and firefighters. Healthcare workers and first responders who present a Costco membership card and official identification of their role, will be allowed to move to the front of any line to enter the warehouse.

 

[Moltuae]

‘Satan will not stop us’: Some Christian pastors plan showdown with coronavirus this Easter
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...megachurch-pastors-donald-trump-a9460246.html
What a complete nutjob And FFS, why would anyone listen to a mental-case like this, cramming into a church to pray during a pandemic. What's wrong with these people!? Give them a Darwin award (Oh, the irony!)!

If it wasn't for the fact that their actions will, without any doubt, result in a spread of the virus extending far beyond their packed congregations, I'd say let them do it -- let's see how well their prayers work against natural selection!

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Moltuae, considering this thing kills next to no one percentage wise, you have very good odds of that congregation losing no one, or perhaps only losing one or two. The former will be seen as divine affirmation of their efforts, and the latter will be seen as such too but after those that died are demonized.

Even if the entire group gets sick, that will be seen as a trial of faith, and all the survivors used to declare a miracles and nonsense.

I'm a Christian, and I regularly attend church... but even I when I see this behavior (and to be clear this isn't new behavior), I'm left annoyingly sympathetic of why the Communists decided to just destroy all the churches. In the meantime, because we have a 1st Amendment, all of this is putting the freedom of assembly to a dangerous test that's not being talked about openly.

So not only do we have stupid people putting themselves and others at risk, but our rights continue to be eroded by the actions of government trying to control the stupid. It's a lose lose situation to be honest, and now the non-political thread contains both religion and politics.

 

[labtech]

I grew up in a communist regime. They wanted to destroy the faith/faithful, so that people could be controlled a little easier.

As it seems in the New World Order agenda of implementing a New Age religion, a lot that has been happening within the society in the last 100 years in causing major decline in church going in North America [and most of the rest of the world through influence], highly resembles communism [creatively carried out through distraction, while quietly passing into law acts that eliminate our liberties]. I realize that it does not feel as such, but it is so and it is getting worse.

 

[Moltuae]

@Moltuae, considering this thing kills next to no one percentage wise, you have very good odds of that congregation losing no one, or perhaps only losing one or two. The former will be seen as divine affirmation of their efforts, and the latter will be seen as such too but after those that died are demonized.

Coronavirus: US pastor who said 'God is larger than this virus' and defied social distancing dies of COVID-19
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...d-social-distancing-dies-of-covid-19-11973094
A different Pastor, but that's one Pastor victim already. I wonder how many of his congregation he gave it to? (and how many they subsequently passed it on to). If these people insist on defying social distancing rules, they should be treated the same as the passengers on infected cruise ships; ie keep them quarantined inside the church for a few weeks.

He said: "The first thing I asked God is, 'Why?'.

I'm confused. I thought the virus was the work of Satan? Are they blaming God for creating the virus now? Or blaming him/her for not doing enough to help those who prayed hard to make it go away?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Coronavirus: US pastor who said 'God is larger than this virus' and defied social distancing dies of COVID-19
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...d-social-distancing-dies-of-covid-19-11973094
A different Pastor, but that's one Pastor victim already. I wonder how many of his congregation he gave it to? (and how many they subsequently passed it on to). If these people insist on defying social distancing rules, they should be treated the same as the passengers on infected cruise ships; ie keep them quarantined inside the church for a few weeks.


I'm confused. I thought the virus was the work of Satan? Are they blaming God for creating the virus now? Or blaming him/her for not doing enough to help those who prayed hard to make it go away?

I stopped trying to make sense of and reason with such lost souls a long time ago. There is no reason in there... the presence of faith doesn't make one unreasonable. But when it does... it creates a level of stupid that creates disasters of (pun intended) Biblical proportions.

You'd think they'd know better if for nothing else the bucket of Biblical examples of what happens to those that tempt God. So yeah... here's yet another one. Darwin Award candidate... too bad he was well past breeding age.

 

[backwoodsman]

Coronavirus: US pastor who said 'God is larger than this virus' and defied social distancing dies of COVID-19

I never heard of that guy before, so went and read a few articles. The headline, and most of the articles about him, are misleading on several counts. The church service they refer to was before the lockdown order, and he actually stated support for social distancing. He knew it was a risk to continue services, but so did everyone else who attended, and they all took the risk by choice. And they were right to make that choice for themselves, on both religious and civil rights grounds. And last but not least, he didn't die of COVID because he went to church, or because he said God is greater than a virus, or because of any other silly headline some clueless sensationalist "journalist" might come up with; of course he may or may not have caught it anyway, but he died for the same reason 99.2% (yes, that's the real statistic) of those who die of it die: He was a high-risk individual, on multiple counts. Even then, he was statistically likely to survive if not for the fact that he went to the doctor several times as his symptoms got worse, and they never even tested him for COVID or started appropriate treatment until he was bad enough to need a ventilator.

He was one of the small percentage who should've quarantined himself, and it would be fair to suggest he should've let healthier people who were at very little risk keep up the church services. But, on the bottom line, it was his choice to make, not yours, and he made it the way he wanted to.

 

[britechguy]

But, on the bottom line, it was his choice to make, not yours, and he made it the way he wanted to.

Uh, perhaps in your opinion. The old saying, "Your right to swing your fist stops before it hits my face," applies here. Decisions that have very well known risks posed to those other than the individual making the choice are not ones that are "just yours" to make. Sorry, but they're not. And you're a selfish, foolish pr*ck if you honestly believe they are. Or I guess they may be yours to make, but if you think that others don't have a right to call them out, well . . .

It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
~ John Andrew Holmes

 

[backwoodsman]

Uh, perhaps in your opinion. The old saying, "Your right to swing your fist stops before it hits my face," applies here. Decisions that have very well known risks posed to those other than the individual making the choice are not ones that are "just yours" to make. Sorry, but they're not. And you're a selfish, foolish pr*ck if you honestly believe they are. Or I guess they may be yours to make, but if you think that others don't have a right to call them out, well . . .

Most people where I live aren't mindless sheep; I forget a bit too easily that many elsewhere, even intelligent computer people, are. Facts and figures are now readily available and easy to find, either direct from official sources or compiled and referenced from such, that (I'll be nice and say) call into question the truthfulness of those media and political figures who whipped up all the mass panic and crashed our economy. Some has even been leaking into the major media in the last few days, so no one really has any excuse for not at least being open to the possibility that most of the panicked overreaction has been based on a sham from the start, should that be what the data ultimately show. One would like to think that civilized people would do their research and educate themselves before getting triggered and stooping to obscene profanity over something of which they're clearly ignorant.

 

[River Valley Computer]

Mr. Backwoodsman:

I TOTALLY agree with your comments too. I do feel that after this ordeal is over, many interesting facts will be found out as to the overreaction of this event. I am however not saying we should not take it seriously.

I TOTALLY disagree with using profanity to insult fellow associates such as Mr. Wordy Thesaurus above just did to you. I thought we were more professional than to resort to such profane name calling!

 

[britechguy]

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
~ Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)