Coronavirus (COVID-19 Outbreak) (59 Viewers)

GordoDeCentral

Diez
Moderator
Apr 14, 2005
70,865
That is true for any disease - from sniffles to cancer - by virtue of our immune system declining as we age.
The moniker "old people's disease" came out early in the pandemic when the %-age of victims, and iirc cases in general, in the 60+ group was much higher than that for younger people, especially below 40 or so yo.
As the pandemic has progressed, however, hospitals are reporting seeing more and more younger people coming in and in critical condition, needing a ventilator to survive. I think Italy was first to report that and the past few days NY hospitals have reported the same trend.
Maybe that's due to a longer incubation period in younger people, maybe younger people are more careless with their health and wait too long before they seek help, maybe it's due to just natural mutation of the virus, maybe all these reasons and many others we aren't aware of yet.
You can say that about practically any disease or pandemic that has ever existed. But the going narrative was that it was implied that not only were the elderly and those with underlying conditions the most at risk, but that they were the ONLY ones at risk. Hence, the clusterfuck of inconsistencies in this country with social distancing, stay at home orders, and the like.

Fuck, Spring Break in Florida was Exhibit A as to how people of a certain age group were convinced that it couldn't happen to them. Welp.

Neither you nor him have any solid data to back up your claim, you speak strictly from your personal interpretation, fueled by fear and panic, and anecdotes.

You obviously can choose to believe anything you want but until the CDC and major scientific outlets change their tune, it is what we are working with right now.
 

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Bjerknes

Bjerknes

"Top Economist"
Mar 16, 2004
116,243
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    Initial jobless claims number. 6.648 million jobless claims vs. the estimated 3.1 million. That's basically 3 million more than last week's number and the largest number ever. Absolutely horrendous.

    This impacts more people in the US than the virus itself.
     

    Seven

    In bocca al lupo, Fabio.
    Jun 25, 2003
    39,346
    Initial jobless claims number. 6.648 million jobless claims vs. the estimated 3.1 million. That's basically 3 million more than last week's number and the largest number ever. Absolutely horrendous.
    Don't worry, Andy. Because this isn't something we should be concerned about now, apparently.

    People will die because they can't afford food, or simply because the food hasn't been grown, but don't worry. We have to focus on staying home right now.
     

    GordoDeCentral

    Diez
    Moderator
    Apr 14, 2005
    70,865
    When I hear politicians speak anymore about anything all I hear is this:

    This is more like it

    Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”
     

    Ronn

    Senior Member
    May 3, 2012
    20,915
    Ive not seen reliable global hospitalization numbers (please link me if you have), but the fatality numbers are a lot different than what you're saying. People 0-50 years old account for a couple percent of the deaths, people 0-60 up to five or six. Thats not a large portion. I think theres logic in isolating the elderly and maybe not resuming totally, but loosening the restrictions for the rest so that we dont wind up in an ugly recession.

    - - - Updated - - -



    The theory I've read from WHO is that 80% of the infected get light or no symptoms at all, for younger people that percentage probably rises significantly. No idea where you got the 40% of residents.
    You’re right. It’s not 40%, but it’s not insignificant either. I found this that says rate is 8% for people in their 50s.
    https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...th-with-covid-19-rise-steadily-with-age-study
     

    KB824

    Senior Member
    Sep 16, 2003
    31,789
    Initial jobless claims number. 6.648 million jobless claims vs. the estimated 3.1 million. That's basically 3 million more than last week's number and the largest number ever. Absolutely horrendous.

    This impacts more people in the US than the virus itself.

    I don't think anyone is disputing that this has more impact. But what should we do? Throw caution to the wind and start opening everything up again?

    We have to ride this out. We don't have many other choices here. The ball was dropped on this at the highest levels of government. Thankfully we can still pick that ball up and run with it.
     
    OP
    Bjerknes

    Bjerknes

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    Mar 16, 2004
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    Don't worry, Andy. Because this isn't something we should be concerned about now, apparently.

    People will die because they can't afford food, or simply because the food hasn't been grown, but don't worry. We have to focus on staying home right now.
    I understand the virus is deadly and we can't overwhelm the healthcare system, but these economic numbers are horrifying depression-level numbers. Weekly initial jobless claims will continue to be in the millions as the downstream impacts filter through the system. Then apart from the virus and economic concerns, social unrest will be the next problem.
     

    Seven

    In bocca al lupo, Fabio.
    Jun 25, 2003
    39,346
    I understand the virus is deadly and we can't overwhelm the healthcare system, but these economic numbers are horrifying depression-level numbers. Weekly initial jobless claims will continue to be in the millions as the downstream impacts filter through the system. Then apart from the virus and economic concerns, social unrest will be the next problem.
    Yes.

    But when you say that all of this might lead to armed conflict, people laugh at you.
     

    lgorTudor

    Senior Member
    Jan 15, 2015
    32,951
    7 and Bjerknes in the same camp :touched:

    Generally I get the vibe people dismiss 'economy' as an evil tool for the 1% to get richer but it's rather a tool for the 99% to survive. By halting economy you don't take away a single penny from the rich but you take everything from everybody else. We should have hardcore-quarantined the risk group, I'm more and more convinced of that.
     
    OP
    Bjerknes

    Bjerknes

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    Mar 16, 2004
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    I don't think anyone is disputing that this has more impact. But what should we do? Throw caution to the wind and start opening everything up again?

    We have to ride this out. We don't have many other choices here. The ball was dropped on this at the highest levels of government. Thankfully we can still pick that ball up and run with it.
    The government wouldn't have been able to stop this unless they shutdown all transcontinental flights the day after the outbreak started in Wuhan. Or maybe if they ordered the production of a billion test kits the day after the virus started in Wuhan. Or maybe if they just nuked Wuhan. Those would have been the options.

    We need to do the social distancing, but we're going to have to incrementally re-open things over time, otherwise the misery is compounded. You're a business guy, you know how hard it is to restart things from scratch, especially as credit lines go down.
     

    swag

    L'autista
    Administrator
    Sep 23, 2003
    84,790
    My wife got a day off today and she had to go out to a meeting at the hospital. Guess what, she said everybody and their mother are outside enjoying the sunshine. Just a normal day in Florida. :baus: Surely the numbers are gonna sky rocket in the coming weeks.

    Apparently there’s a more strict stay-at-home order starting at midnight. Hopefully those fuckers will stay inside now.
    Florida be Florida. It's like a toxic mix of orange juice and swamp gas makes people mad there.

    Young people are idiots. They probably would have found some stupid way to die soon anyway.

    Shouldn't be overreacting and putting everyone in lockdown and fucking the economy just for them.
    It does kind of follow that video on Camus that @GordoDeCentral posted yesterday. If you think you're optimizing for future life outcomes, are you essentially creating a society of clueless idiots who are more likely to spread the disease?

    Of course, nothing the US government hasn't done.

    There will be plenty of time for this nonsense. I just don't get the obsession with doing this now when the house is on fire and people want to talk about who bought the matches.

    almost 26K new cases and over 1K deaths in the US today and the day isn't over yet.
    Sorry, Spain. You were so close for a while there.

    This virus could really help overpopulation and climate change. Kill of 20% plus of the boomers and leave a lot of Gen-Xers with shortened life spans due to lung damage.

    :weee:
    Natural systems exist for a reason, not randomness. The human species has coexisted with epidemics and pandemics throughout its existence. There is likely some dark-but-entirely-natural symbiosis going on.

    All jokes aside the ecosystem would benefit so much without us piece of shit human beings. The animals are having the time of their lives right now :baus:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/science/coronavirus-animals-wildlife-goats.html
    Meh. I used to see coyotes in San Francisco's McLaren Park all the time on my daily walks. It's only now that people are bothering to notice.

    It's a huge thing here. Government came out with a financial plan to support private businesses but many people will still lose their job. Even with that support plenty of people are going on minimal wages which is enough to pay for the rent and 1/2 of the bills. So no 1/2 of the bills and no food. So yeah, plenty of people here will be totally fucked once we confirm 24h lockdown which would probably last for a month. But even after the disaster will continue as plenty will be jobless and won't have enough money to keep going. It's just insane. The damage here will be a lot bigger than corona.
    Well, this is a good time for a lot of places to think about whether rentier capitalism needs to die or not.

    Looking at Covid stats I cant help, but shake the feeling this might take half a year, a year or even until we have official medicin available.

    The main strategy for most countries is flatten the curve, spread the timeline and limit the amount of infected at once. But it leads to 1-3% of the population being infected during the course of a month, if we assume we need to reach 40-50% until we resume as usual, the timeline gets very long.

    Perhaps this is not fair, but wouldnt it be better to impose grave restrictions to everyone above 60 until we've found the medical solution and let everyone else resume daily activity?
    You're assuming the virus doesn't mutate over those many months. Good luck with that. Ever wonder why the A + B flu shots come out with new formulations every year?

    Even if we locked away every person 60+ years old -- which would be more than a little like rounding up the Jews, just using driver's license birthdates instead of yellow badges -- you're still saying its open season to flood the health care system. (Never mind how this would orphan young people and cut off a number of financially productive members of society.) You can probably estimate that 70-80% exposure is the max possible for an epidemic among its population. Then you throw in that a conservative 10% need hospitalization vs the 20% we hear reported for the older lot, at a population of 7.8B, and subtract the 700M over age 65 as of 2019, that comes out to about 350-400 million people.

    And given that you aren't using techniques to flatten the curve, you're creating a spike of infections to happen more at once rather than spaced over months.

    So before we even talk about ventilators, we're talking shy of a half a billion hospital beds and the health care staff to care for them.

    The quarantines and lockdowns are a crude and extremely blunt instrument. Like using a flamethrower to get rid of flies in your kitchen. The best alternative is really a system of rampant testing and tracing. This works in China and South Korea. But will the civil liberty sacrifices fly in other countries like the US?
     
    Last edited:

    Ronn

    Senior Member
    May 3, 2012
    20,915
    It would be 40% of the people needing to be hospitalized (which is a minority) of the people having symptoms, which again are a minority. It's still a lot of people, don't get me wrong. But it's at least 40 times less people than you are suggesting.
    By decade, the risk of hospitalization from infection with the new coronavirus is: Zero for kids under 10; 0.1% for kids 10 to 19; 1% for people aged 20 to 29; 3.4% for people aged 30 to 39; 4.3% for people in their 40s; 8.2% for those in their 50s; 11.8% for people aged 60 to 69; 16.6% for those in their 70s; and 18.4% for those in their 80s or above.”
    https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...th-with-covid-19-rise-steadily-with-age-study
    I doubt any healthcare system is designed for these numbers.
     
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    Bjerknes

    Bjerknes

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    Mar 16, 2004
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    Yes.

    But when you say that all of this might lead to armed conflict, people laugh at you.
    I'm not sure if it will lead to wars, but I can guarantee that people will resort to crime if they have no food or money. It might not be a problem in other parts of the world, but it in the US it will be a different story, especially in the cities where nobody is really prepared for anything.
     

    Seven

    In bocca al lupo, Fabio.
    Jun 25, 2003
    39,346
    By decade, the risk of hospitalization from infection with the new coronavirus is: Zero for kids under 10; 0.1% for kids 10 to 19; 1% for people aged 20 to 29; 3.4% for people aged 30 to 39; 4.3% for people in their 40s; 8.2% for those in their 50s; 11.8% for people aged 60 to 69; 16.6% for those in their 70s; and 18.4% for those in their 80s or above.”
    https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...th-with-covid-19-rise-steadily-with-age-study
    I doubt any healthcare system is designed for these numbers.
    Those figures are still pretty far off from 40% of the residents.

    This is of people infected.

    And the highest number in the aforementioned age group is 8.2 %.
     

    KB824

    Senior Member
    Sep 16, 2003
    31,789
    The government wouldn't have been able to stop this unless they shutdown all transcontinental flights the day after the outbreak started in Wuhan. Or maybe if they ordered the production of a billion test kits the day after the virus started in Wuhan. Or maybe if they just nuked Wuhan. Those would have been the options.

    We need to do the social distancing, but we're going to have to incrementally re-open things over time, otherwise the misery is compounded. You're a business guy, you know how hard it is to restart things from scratch, especially as credit lines go down.

    You are right. They couldn't have stopped it, especially considering the amount of people that fly to and from China on a daily basis in this country. But weeks of calling this a hoax, or a liberal tool to impeach the president absolutely did not help matters. We are in this situation partly because we waited way too long to react. We had Italy as the prime example of what NOT to do, and we didn't follow it.

    And waiting until, what, last week to enforce the Defense Protection Act? Come on. This situation is, and will be a lot worse, due to our pathetically slow response time to this.
     

    Seven

    In bocca al lupo, Fabio.
    Jun 25, 2003
    39,346
    Natural systems exist for a reason, not randomness. The human species has coexisted with epidemics and pandemics throughout its existence. There is likely some dark-but-entirely-natural symbiosis going on.
    We evolve through pandemics.

    I'm not saying let people die. But consistently weakening our own non-specific immune system is a bad thing.
     

    Ronn

    Senior Member
    May 3, 2012
    20,915
    Those figures are still pretty far off from 40% of the residents.

    This is of people infected.

    And the highest number in the aforementioned age group is 8.2 %.
    I said in another post that I was wrong about 40%.
    From what we’ve seen so far nobody’s immune of being infected. So I don’t know why the text in bold is significant.
     

    Strickland

    Senior Member
    May 17, 2019
    5,859
    Florida be Florida. It's like a toxic mix of orange juice and swamp gas makes people mad there.



    It does kind of follow that video on Camus that @GordoDeCentral posted yesterday. If you think you're optimizing for future life outcomes, are you essentially creating a society of clueless idiots who are more likely to spread the disease?



    Of course, nothing the US government hasn't done.

    There will be plenty of time for this nonsense. I just don't get the obsession with doing this now when the house is on fire and people want to talk about who bought the matches.



    Sorry, Spain. You were so close for a while there.



    Natural systems exist for a reason, not randomness. The human species has coexisted with epidemics and pandemics throughout its existence. There is likely some dark-but-entirely-natural symbiosis going on.



    Meh. I used to see coyotes in San Francisco's McLaren Park all the time on my daily walks. It's only now that people are bothering to notice.



    Well, this is a good time for a lot of places to think about whether rentier capitalism needs to die or not.



    You're assuming the virus doesn't mutate over those many months. Good luck with that. Ever wonder why the A + B flu shots come out with new formulations every year?

    Even if we locked away every person 60+ years old -- which would be more than a little like rounding up the Jews, just using driver's license birthdates instead of yellow badges -- you're still saying its open season to flood the health care system. You can probably estimate that 70-80% exposure is the max possible for an epidemic among its population. Then you throw in that a conservative 10% need hospitalization vs the 20% we hear reported for the older lot, at a population of 7.8B, and subtract the 700M over age 65 as of 2019, that comes out to about 350-400 million people.

    And given that you aren't using techniques to flatten the curve, you're creating a spike of infections to happen more at once rather than spaced over months.

    So before we even talk about ventilators, we're talking shy of a half a billion hospital beds and the health care staff to care for them.

    The quarantines and lockdowns are a crude and extremely blunt instrument. Like using a flamethrower to get rid of flies in your kitchen. The best alternative is really a system of rampant testing and tracing. This works in China and South Korea. But will the civil liberty sacrifices fly in other countries like the US?
    Lol its nothing like rounding up the Jews. In one scenario there was genocide, in the other I'm suggesting strict quarantine for elderly with everyone elsea taking care of them with basics. I'd say its very different.

    If you cant resume fully after restricting movement for the elderly, you can still relieve the restrictions a lot, as the number of serious cases should drop heavily and the timeline for the curve gets drastically shorter. Pops and grandma sitting at home should be able to understand.
     

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