LaxPower Back-Up Stick

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Bart wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:25 am

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Do you think the denominator is accurate? I certainly do not. China with 94k cases? I don’t trust that number one bit. I am afraid we will never know the true denominator snd as a result the true mortality rate. The numbers out of Korea would be a better estimate when it’s all said and, hopefully, done.

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Bart wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:25 am

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Do you think the denominator is accurate? I certainly do not. China with 94k cases? I don’t trust that number one bit. I am afraid we will never know the true denominator snd as a result the true mortality rate. The numbers out of Korea would be a better estimate when it’s all said and, hopefully, done.

jhu72 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:47 am

Bart wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:25 am

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Do you think the denominator is accurate? I certainly do not. China with 94k cases? I don’t trust that number one bit. I am afraid we will never know the true denominator snd as a result the true mortality rate. The numbers out of Korea would be a better estimate when it’s all said and, hopefully, done.

I agree, the truth is closer to the SK case, although I do have to wonder if they are over reporting the number of cases. Not intentionally but through some artifact of their test protocol. We know nothing about the accuracy of any of these diagnostics.

Bart wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:41 am

jhu72 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:47 am

Bart wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:25 am

foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:07 am Looking at the total number of cases, 96888, vs total number of deaths, 3300, gives you a 3%+ mortality rate.

During their recent press conference, they are stating that the 3% number is currently not reflective of the total number of people who have the virus, but don't get tested.

The "denominator" is "inaccurate"....

Do you think the denominator is accurate? I certainly do not. China with 94k cases? I don’t trust that number one bit. I am afraid we will never know the true denominator snd as a result the true mortality rate. The numbers out of Korea would be a better estimate when it’s all said and, hopefully, done.

I agree, the truth is closer to the SK case, although I do have to wonder if they are over reporting the number of cases. Not intentionally but through some artifact of their test protocol. We know nothing about the accuracy of any of these diagnostics.

Point taken. Like everything new, the bugs of testing will need to be worked out. I would err on the side of over diagnosis than not however. May make the true mortality rate hard to pin down however.

Here is a worrying thought. We are about to enter into spring break season across the college spectrum. It is also a time when we are realizing the virus has begun to spread across the country. What is worrying is that college aged kids will be massing in several spots to enjoy the spring ritual of break. If one of these hot spots has a "flare up" of the virus by some means the spread would be immense and immediate. It is not like these kids would be looking for signs of infection, I wouldn't be if I was there, as they have other things on their mind. If this happens it would change the landscape dramatically on many, many college campuses and certainly would be harder to track. This entire thing is a nightmare for any public health official.

Trinity wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:39 pm We don’t have the tests. Walk it off, America.

thatsmell wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:25 am

Trinity wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:39 pm We don’t have the tests. Walk it off, America.

Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me. I think Corona's been here and around the world, circulating for a while now.

I think it's likely many cases were just assumed to be the common cold or flu by patients...then the "oh shoot" moment/discovery occurred.

CU88 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:40 am

thatsmell wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:25 am

Trinity wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:39 pm We don’t have the tests. Walk it off, America.

Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me. I think Corona's been here and around the world, circulating for a while now.

I think it's likely many cases were just assumed to be the common cold or flu by patients...then the "oh shoot" moment/discovery occurred.

So we just ignore it and go one with our daily lives???

thatsmell wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:25 am

Trinity wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:39 pm We don’t have the tests. Walk it off, America.

Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me. I think Corona's been here and around the world, circulating for a while now.

I think it's likely many cases were just assumed to be the common cold or flu by patients...then the "oh shoot" moment/discovery occurred.

But these were my seven key takeaways:

In the typical case, Covid-19 will generate flu-like symptoms, and just like the flu will mostly not require hospitalization or pose a risk of death. In that sense, a typical non-elderly person who isn’t immunocompromised or for some other reason at unusually high risk does not have all that much to fear from coronavirus and shouldn’t panic.

On the other hand, while severe cases of Covid-19 are a distinct minority of cases, they appear to be a much larger minority than what we see with seasonal flu. A large swath of Covid-19 patients end up requiring hospitalization, and the mortality rate appears to be several times higher than for the flu. These adverse outcomes are highly concentrated among the elderly, meaning that while the risk to the typical person is low, the risk to specific population subgroups is high.

A particular risk with coronavirus (or any outbreak) is that it occurs in addition to all the other health problems of the world. Health care systems in the United States and around the world do not typically carry a lot of spare capacity. So a big surge in the number of people requiring hospitalization risks overwhelming health care systems. That’s particularly true because, as with any new virus, frontline health care workers are relatively likely to get sick, thus diminishing capacity.

The fact that most Covid-19 cases are mild is good news on one level, but it also makes the virus hard to contain. The typical infected person develops mild symptoms that are not readily distinguishable from those of a normal cold or flu, so you can’t tell who has coronavirus unless you do a special test. And those with mild cases will generally remain ambulatory and capable of going about their business — unwittingly spreading infection to friends and colleagues and putting vulnerable populations at risk.

Because coronavirus is not easy to detect, when it first arose in Wuhan, China, it quickly got out of control. By the time enough severely ill people were in the hospital for authorities to realize there was a new virus in play, mild cases had spread the illness, and they were left playing catch-up.

China eventually acknowledged the scale of the problem and began to lock down travel and curtail social interactions, dramatically slowing the spread of infection. At the same time, foreign countries imposed restrictions on Chinese travelers, slowing further spread of the infection. But due to the hard-to-detect nature of coronavirus, those border control measures were doomed to eventually fail — though they did buy time.

The case of Singapore (and eventually China) shows that with effective policies in place, the infection can be controlled. But that requires aggressive, proactive measures, widespread testing, and compliance with directives to self-isolate and practice social distancing. The United States did successfully buy time with border control measures but did not actually use that time to get an infection surveillance infrastructure in place, and is now playing catch-up — running a big risk of the problem becoming much more serious.

RedFromMI wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:22 am Matthew Yglesias of vox.com has a podcast called The Weeds. In his latest episode he interviews Josh Michaud, associate director for Global Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

To summarize - (my bolding of the quote)

But these were my seven key takeaways:

In the typical case, Covid-19 will generate flu-like symptoms, and just like the flu will mostly not require hospitalization or pose a risk of death. In that sense, a typical non-elderly person who isn’t immunocompromised or for some other reason at unusually high risk does not have all that much to fear from coronavirus and shouldn’t panic.

On the other hand, while severe cases of Covid-19 are a distinct minority of cases, they appear to be a much larger minority than what we see with seasonal flu. A large swath of Covid-19 patients end up requiring hospitalization, and the mortality rate appears to be several times higher than for the flu. These adverse outcomes are highly concentrated among the elderly, meaning that while the risk to the typical person is low, the risk to specific population subgroups is high.

A particular risk with coronavirus (or any outbreak) is that it occurs in addition to all the other health problems of the world. Health care systems in the United States and around the world do not typically carry a lot of spare capacity. So a big surge in the number of people requiring hospitalization risks overwhelming health care systems. That’s particularly true because, as with any new virus, frontline health care workers are relatively likely to get sick, thus diminishing capacity.

The fact that most Covid-19 cases are mild is good news on one level, but it also makes the virus hard to contain. The typical infected person develops mild symptoms that are not readily distinguishable from those of a normal cold or flu, so you can’t tell who has coronavirus unless you do a special test. And those with mild cases will generally remain ambulatory and capable of going about their business — unwittingly spreading infection to friends and colleagues and putting vulnerable populations at risk.

Because coronavirus is not easy to detect, when it first arose in Wuhan, China, it quickly got out of control. By the time enough severely ill people were in the hospital for authorities to realize there was a new virus in play, mild cases had spread the illness, and they were left playing catch-up.

China eventually acknowledged the scale of the problem and began to lock down travel and curtail social interactions, dramatically slowing the spread of infection. At the same time, foreign countries imposed restrictions on Chinese travelers, slowing further spread of the infection. But due to the hard-to-detect nature of coronavirus, those border control measures were doomed to eventually fail — though they did buy time.

The case of Singapore (and eventually China) shows that with effective policies in place, the infection can be controlled. But that requires aggressive, proactive measures, widespread testing, and compliance with directives to self-isolate and practice social distancing. The United States did successfully buy time with border control measures but did not actually use that time to get an infection surveillance infrastructure in place, and is now playing catch-up — running a big risk of the problem becoming much more serious.