Coronavirus

[Deleted member 365]

The hospitalizations will trail the new cases rate (sometimes, a lot of time people are under investigation while in the hospital), but my point is more that using the current trend is not very meaningful, because the reason for the increased capacity is not because of COVID. To give you an idea of what the hospitals are anticipating, when this whole thing got moving and there was serious scare about totally overwhelming the systems, they were inquiring with people far removed from general or primary care their comfort level with managing ER and general med/surg patients (psychiatrists, pathologists, radiologists, opthalmologists, etc.). They are not asking those questions anymore.

But, yes, if things trend where 800-1,200 new cases daily is the norm, hospitalizations would increase. If they are increasing proportionally, then there's still plenty of capacity because 4 people in an ICU, with only two on vents, is a very small amount for a level II trauma center.

My presumption is that with all new infections (nationwide, any given locality may have different dynamics) you'll see a skewing toward younger people, as a lot of people are self-selecting out of what interactions they have when they go out, so you will see the infection rates and mortality rates continue to grow farther apart, and it will take a higher % of the population to be infected to translate to additional hospitalizations/deaths than it did 2-3 months ago.

I understand the confidence in Utah’s capacity. That’s good. I’m glad we have capacity (so far and in the foreseeable future).

My issue is with the actual human suffering. The majority of people with this will experience “mild” symptoms that will take them out for 2 weeks. A perfect of these people will have life long effects. These people will stress out their families, lose income due to illness, and will rack up medical bills that they’d otherwise not be incurring.

As case numbers increase, so will hospitalizations, and the death numbers (because math). Utah has been fortunate to see low death rates due to a variety of factors. But even still, as more people become sick, the people will end up with life long issues, and the more death.

I hope not to contract this. I wish that our state government would wake up and start setting some new rules for the most populated areas of the state. There’s no reason why dine in restaurants should be allowed. movie theaters should be closed. And high schools should not be playing football. If businesses aren’t requiring masks, then government should. Hell, to my knowledge we aren’t even abiding by the 14 day lower cases to adjust the color code that was set forth at the beginning of this pandemic. Why have standards and goals if we’re just going to blow them off?

 

[fishonjazz]

Agreed. What’s really obnoxious is that these people will whine about how they’re tired of social distancing and using masks. Yet, their attitude and actions only prolong it.

Don’t like masks and social distancing? Who does? So let’s do it now (short term sacrifice) for a long term gain.

Explain to me how it helps long term. Let's say we lock everything down hardcore for 2 months. Then open things up. Dont the numbers just go way up again anyway? The virus doesnt disappear does it?

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[Deleted member 365]

Explain to me how it helps long term. Let's say we lock everything down hardcore for 2 months. Then open things up. Dont the numbers just go way up again anyway? The virus doesnt disappear does it?

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Theoretically, the virus could go away if you shut everything down for 2-3 weeks and made those coming into the state self-quarantine. Other states have actually done that. The 2-3 week shutdown would allow the virus to pass through its current hosts. Without additional hosts to infect, the virus would go away.

Having said that, I don’t think the goal should be to eliminate the virus completely. I don’t think it’s realistic honestly. But I don’t see why we couldn’t keep the numbers to 100-200 like we did in April and May. Get rid of in house dining, get rid of the movie theaters, stop the sports, shut down some of the parks, mandate mask wearing, and get the numbers down as far as we can in the next 2-3 weeks.

One of the complaints as of late as been the lack of goal setting by state governments. Now is the chance. I’d love for Herbert to come out with some new restrictions with new goals.

I think I forgot one of your questions... remind me if I fid

 

[infection]

I understand the confidence in Utah’s capacity. That’s good. I’m glad we have capacity (so far and in the foreseeable future).

My issue is with the actual human suffering. The majority of people with this will experience “mild” symptoms that will take them out for 2 weeks. A perfect of these people will have life long effects. These people will stress out their families, lose income due to illness, and will rack up medical bills that they’d otherwise not be incurring.

As case numbers increase, so will hospitalizations, and the death numbers (because math). Utah has been fortunate to see low death rates due to a variety of factors. But even still, as more people become sick, the people will end up with life long issues, and the more death.

I hope not to contract this. I wish that our state government would wake up and start setting some new rules for the most populated areas of the state. There’s no reason why dine in restaurants should be allowed. movie theaters should be closed. And high schools should not be playing football. If businesses aren’t requiring masks, then government should. Hell, to my knowledge we aren’t even abiding by the 14 day lower cases to adjust the color code that was set forth at the beginning of this pandemic. Why have standards and goals if we’re just going to blow them off?

It's not wrong to take that approach, but it's important to understand the context of how we got here. From the outset, this was never about reducing total infections. It was always presumed that the same total number of people would be infected, but that they just needed to be redistributed to allow the system to absorb them. The idea of a vaccination or treatment being available any time in the near future is fairly unlikely. Not impossible, but just very, very unlikely. So while the costs associated with hospitalizations, disability, and death are all unfortunate, they aren't necessarily being avoided unless we're assuming we can keep things more locked down for the next 18 months, and even banking on an effective treatment/vaccination at that point is very questionable. And to do so has its own costs that are also very large and very much affect the health of individuals and societies.

But I don't oppose taking precautions, wearing masks, etc. However, the idea that we can try to push more for strict shutdown without consequence isn't really sustainable. It's very much like parenting. I can keep my child safe (in general, not COVID) by restricting their activities and keeping a very close eye on them and not allow them to engage in any risk-taking behaviors. The problem with this is that in the process of doing so, I'm suppressing them enough that they will act out in the opposite direction if for no other reason than feeling liberated. If my response to them going against my wishes is to place more and more restrictions, it will be my own behavior that drives them to not listen to anything I say. So even though my intentions of keeping my child safe came from a good place, they ultimately produce results opposite of what I'd want. The more we push against people wanting to open up by just trying to provide a counter-punch, the more we're driving them to be polarized, as well. [Thus we see mask refusals as an act of defiance and liberation, if for no other purpose than as a statement]. And while it would be nice in theory for people to take that responsibility upon themselves, we also have to be very cognizant of how our own behaviors and actions toward them is pushing their behavior further from where we would like it. Even if it seems unfair. We need to determine if we're committed to results and improvement that may require sacrificing a little pride, or accepting things being worse but feeling vindicated with 'being right.'

 

[Deleted member 365]

It's not wrong to take that approach, but it's important to understand the context of how we got here. From the outset, this was never about reducing total infections. It was always presumed that the same total number of people would be infected, but that they just needed to be redistributed to allow the system to absorb them. The idea of a vaccination or treatment being available any time in the near future is fairly unlikely. Not impossible, but just very, very unlikely. So while the costs associated with hospitalizations, disability, and death are all unfortunate, they aren't necessarily being avoided unless we're assuming we can keep things more locked down for the next 18 months, and even banking on an effective treatment/vaccination at that point is very questionable. And to do so has its own costs that are also very large and very much affect the health of individuals and societies.

But I don't oppose taking precautions, wearing masks, etc. However, the idea that we can try to push more for strict shutdown without consequence isn't really sustainable. It's very much like parenting. I can keep my child safe (in general, not COVID) by restricting their activities and keeping a very close eye on them and not allow them to engage in any risk-taking behaviors. The problem with this is that in the process of doing so, I'm suppressing them enough that they will act out in the opposite direction if for no other reason than feeling liberated. If my response to them going against my wishes is to place more and more restrictions, it will be my own behavior that drives them to not listen to anything I say. So even though my intentions of keeping my child safe came from a good place, they ultimately produce results opposite of what I'd want. The more we push against people wanting to open up by just trying to provide a counter-punch, the more we're driving them to be polarized, as well. [Thus we see mask refusals as an act of defiance and liberation, if for no other purpose than as a statement]. And while it would be nice in theory for people to take that responsibility upon themselves, we also have to be very cognizant of how our own behaviors and actions toward them is pushing their behavior further from where we would like it. Even if it seems unfair. We need to determine if we're committed to results and improvement that may require sacrificing a little pride, or accepting things being worse but feeling vindicated with 'being right.'

I would like us to take the Germany or Japan approach. Germany cites American research (that we've ignored) as to their reason for dealing with this pandemic so well. Japan is another country that I'd like to look closer at. It seems like there are some common things we should take away from countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

I just can't find any good reason why in-house dining is an option. Some have even gotten rid of curbside pickup. Which seems counter to beating a pandemic. I don't understand why high school sports are going full speed. And why the hell movie theaters are open (other than the Miller family is a powerful lobbyist). I don't know why masks haven't been mandated either. If people won't listen to the governor then ask Pres. Nelson to mandate masks for all I care. That'll take care of a huge segment of our population.

To me, these aren't too draconian and have proven in most countries to make a significant difference.

 

[Deleted member 365]

This doesn’t sound good

 

[Deleted member 365]

Brazil with 55,000 cases in 1 day. Yikes

 

[Deleted member 365]

Yikes

 

[candrew]

Speaking in general terms, as a nation, the infection rate has been going up while the death rate is going down. Why is that? The answer is no one knows and if they say they know they're full of ****. But, there is precedence for this. During the 1918 Spanish Flu there was a 4 month period in the United States where there were ZERO deaths attributed to the flu - and then it came back with a vengeance. This also happened in 2009 on a global level with H1N1, albeit at a much smaller scale - and no one knows why.

So my proposal is take advantage of this time. Everyone who is elderly or has pre-existing conditions which would exacerbate any illness due to the virus stays locked up - for the latter group your income and health care will be guaranteed by the government for the time being. Everybody else - GTFO.

The goal is to get to the 60-70% infection rate before the virus becomes deadly again. This is the coveted benchmark at which, according to the experts, the virus will be begin to die out. My fear is we hit flu season at or around the same time as a second spike, we're still a 15-20% infection rate and this thing takes off like a rocket - and probably much worse than before.

 

[Scat]

we're still a 15-20% infection rate

I'm thinking that if they started doing wide spread anti-body testing we'd see that the infection rate is much higher.

 

[infection]

Speaking in general terms, as a nation, the infection rate has been going up while the death rate is going down. Why is that? The answer is no one knows and if they say they know they're full of ****. But, there is precedence for this. During the 1918 Spanish Flu there was a 4 month period in the United States where there were ZERO deaths attributed to the flu - and then it came back with a vengeance. This also happened in 2009 on a global level with H1N1, albeit at a much smaller scale - and no one knows why.

So my proposal is take advantage of this time. Everyone who is elderly or has pre-existing conditions which would exacerbate any illness due to the virus stays locked up - for the latter group your income and health care will be guaranteed by the government for the time being. Everybody else - GTFO.

The goal is to get to the 60-70% infection rate before the virus becomes deadly again. This is the coveted benchmark at which, according to the experts, the virus will be begin to die out. My fear is we hit flu season at or around the same time as a second spike, we're still a 15-20% infection rate and this thing takes off like a rocket - and probably much worse than before.

My thoughts of what’s hard to interpret is the (lack of) clarity with new cases. Every country and locality is doing this different (and, hell, we still don’t really have a good idea on sensitivity and specificity of tests and we’re using so many of them) and so it’s hard to generalize what’s actually happening with COVID from testing alone. Obviously deaths are going to be a more reliable approximate of reality because, as the severity rises, so does the ability to more accurately capture it. So, in one sense, we look at the US and our curve doesn’t follow other countries’ curves in terms of new cases. On the other hand, our mortality curves look just like every other countries’. Is this because the US is magic? Or are there other variables involving what’s captured in new cases with large variability between countries. I’m really just thinking out loud here and not suggesting things either way, I’m a bit agnostic. But there has to be something about our cases not dropping, like many other model countries, but our fatality curves are trending the same way. I’d imagine “it’s less deadly in the US” probably isn’t the reason.

But, in any case, we talk about these high numbers needed for herd immunity. I’m not basing this off anything, but I’m skeptical regarding that. Getting above 50+% of the population infected is so massive. My suspicion would be that it would top out at 25% before it dies down (not suggesting it gets there, just tops out there — at least this strain), and even then I think that may be determined in hindsight, just as a few years later they cake out saying that the actual infection rate of H1N1 was 20%, way higher than originally thought. And with the CDC saying the estimated mortality rate, as of now, is about 0.3%, I’d imagine this runs lower than that.

And, of course, it could be seasonal. Nobody really knows.

But, if the theory were indeed true, then yes, get everyone young and healthy infected so that they are less vectors in the future (presuming low reinfection rate).

 

[Deleted member 365]

Speaking in general terms, as a nation, the infection rate has been going up while the death rate is going down. Why is that? The answer is no one knows and if they say they know they're full of ****. But, there is precedence for this. During the 1918 Spanish Flu there was a 4 month period in the United States where there were ZERO deaths attributed to the flu - and then it came back with a vengeance. This also happened in 2009 on a global level with H1N1, albeit at a much smaller scale - and no one knows why.

So my proposal is take advantage of this time. Everyone who is elderly or has pre-existing conditions which would exacerbate any illness due to the virus stays locked up - for the latter group your income and health care will be guaranteed by the government for the time being. Everybody else - GTFO.

The goal is to get to the 60-70% infection rate before the virus becomes deadly again. This is the coveted benchmark at which, according to the experts, the virus will be begin to die out. My fear is we hit flu season at or around the same time as a second spike, we're still a 15-20% infection rate and this thing takes off like a rocket - and probably much worse than before.

From what I understand, the 1918 flu mutated between the spring and fall to become deadlier. That’s why the fall was so awful and the death tolls hit the millions. Then it mutated again in 1919 to be less deadly and fade away.

there might be possible mutations to Covid although most experts I've seen so far say that it hasn’t become less deadly (just more infectious).

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