

When all of this is over, this man should earn a Nobel Prize for his writing.
Watsisname wrote:Source of the post This can be a very nasty virus.
midtskogen wrote:Source of the post "Can" is also an important word. If treated, mortality does seem fairly low, and I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches that of flu when all the numbers are in. If the healthcare system is overwhelmed, however, there can be little doubt now that it becomes a very dangerous virus for some.
midtskogen wrote:Watsisname wrote:Source of the post This can be a very nasty virus.
"Can" is also an important word. If treated, mortality does seem fairly low, and I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches that of flu when all the numbers are in. If the healthcare system is overwhelmed, however, there can be little doubt now that it becomes a very dangerous virus for some. So flattening the curve is the key, but we must also be careful how that is done. The vulnerable and people in healthcare must be protected, and at the same time business must continue with the least disruption possible.
Watsisname wrote:midtskogen wrote:Source of the post "Can" is also an important word. If treated, mortality does seem fairly low, and I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches that of flu when all the numbers are in. If the healthcare system is overwhelmed, however, there can be little doubt now that it becomes a very dangerous virus for some.
Exactly, and I think that is one of the most important messages. The virus does not have some intrinsic transmission coefficient or mortality rate. Both depend on how we respond to it. Its potential to cause widespread death and suffering is extremely high if everyone did nothing. But humans are intelligent. Many are changing their behaviors rather than doing nothing, and that helps mitigate the risk.
How much action is too much? Previously we've been taught to flatten the curve (reducing R to something closer to but still greater than 1, so the virus still spreads but not so quickly), and I too thought it was the most reasonable thing to do. It is intuitive that going so far as reversing the curve would only cause unnecessarily greater economic damage.
But after reading The Hammer and the Dance article, and thinking about it... I found the arguments for a shorter term but more aggressive solution very persuasive. Even if the author is not an expert in epidemiology or economics, I agree with him. I think flattening the curve was the right starting point, as it was easier to enact and have the public adjust while also putting us in the right direction of slowing the virus down. Then the idea of the hammer is "let's act further now, and go through a rough few weeks instead of a rough few months, which will then make the following year much easier." In fact the WHO is also now recommending suppression rather than just mitigation. If enacted carefully, it appears it can reduce the cost in both lives and economies, limit the opportunities for the virus to evolve new strains, and buy us more time and capacity to better manage the virus in the long term until vaccines are ready.
Watsisname wrote:It also has a tendency to directly go for the lungs and result in pneumonia, fibrosis (scarring), and permanently reduced lung capacity. For some, recovery does not necessarily mean back to 100%, and that is also not always limited to the elderly or cases with the most severe symptoms. I've seen some sad medical reports of healthy people in their 20s and 30s having no prior symptoms suddenly collapse, CT scans then discovering the extent of the damage done. There's also the problem that the immune system itself can be a killer when the infection is in the lungs (cytokine storms). Modern medicine can treat that, but not if hospitals are overwhelmed.
This can be a very nasty virus.
AlmaDely wrote:“It had only killed 41 people” isn't a good metric. A virus that’s infected, say, 500,000 people and killed 41 is quite a different thing from a virus that’s infected 42 people and killed 41.
The mortality rate of this virus is 41 in 4,000 cases, or about 1%. Doesn’t sound like a lot, right?
By way of comparison, the mortality rate of influenza A is 0.1%, hepatitis A is 0.3%, anthrax is 0.6%, smallpox is 3.0%, and Lassa fever is 1.1%.
So we’re talking about a virus with comparable mortality to smallpox and Lassa fever, that’s easily transmitted (it has an R0 of somewhere between 1.4 and 2.5, meaning each infected person can be expected to transmit it to 2–4 others). By way of comparison, the R0 of influenza is 1.4 to 1.6, and Ebola is 1.5 to 2.0.
It’s as lethal as smallpox and spreads as fast as or faster than Ebola.
A-L-E-X wrote:Source of the post The economy doesn't matter at this point.
midtskogen wrote:A-L-E-X wrote:Source of the post The economy doesn't matter at this point.
Remember that there is a percentage of the population that is alive thanks to a well economically developed society, and we can't allow that to change. We need to be pragmatic. We want to avoid triage in healthcare, and trade that for temporary triage in the economy but we do triage. Food and goods still need to be distributed and that part of the economy can't stop. Infrastructure needs to be maintained. For the most part things need to go on, but in a more "undercover" way.
Watsisname wrote:Alarming (but not yet robustly verified) news. It appears that the strain of the virus spreading through the US might be more dangerous in younger age groups:
I'm hoping that this could be due to biases in terms of people who have the most travel and contact with others, and that more elderly may have already socially distanced themselves in the US. But we'll see how the expert review goes.
midtskogen wrote:A-L-E-X wrote:Source of the post The economy doesn't matter at this point.
Remember that there is a percentage of the population that is alive thanks to a well economically developed society, and we can't allow that to change. We need to be pragmatic. We want to avoid triage in healthcare, and trade that for temporary triage in the economy but we do triage. Food and goods still need to be distributed and that part of the economy can't stop. Infrastructure needs to be maintained. For the most part things need to go on, but in a more "undercover" way.