How would the coronavirus have played out if we did nothing? similar? 10% worse? 2X worse? 5X worse?

Some_Local wrote:

I think you misunderstand what a lot of people in this thread are trying to say.

Your paragraph talks about COVID-19 as if it's over, that it's gone, and it's not coming back. This is obviously not the case. There is no cure. There are barely any treatments. All these other nations have done is extend the timeframe for the current death toll in the hopes someone can find a cure or at least effective treatments.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But I believe there is a proven procedure where, IF you control the virus early on to the point of pretty much squashing it (like New Zealand), you can return to relatively unrestricted living, IF you have good and immediate surveillance, testing, and contact tracing. Basically, if you have the system in place to spot and isolate a potential outbreak very quickly, you can return to day to day activity without much worry of a larger outbreak (epidemic).

For most of the world, that ship has sailed for the forseeable fuure. For a few countries, they believe they can do that. So they aren't waiting for a cure, they are in serious containment mode. I think that is easier to implement in smaller, more organized countries. In the U.S., it would be impossible, especially with the mindset of most Americans being to find or initiate conflict in any circumstance and and that its every man for himself.

We simply do not have sufficient data to even argue about this. That goes for both sides.

We don't have estimates of how many people have had this that have any reasonable degree of confidence level. We haven't, to my knowledge, done a large scale test of random individuals spread out across the entire country. We simply have no idea what we are dealing with. Its shameful. (if anyone has the data on how many have had it, please reply back, I'm interested)

Without this, we have no idea how many people have actually had covid, this is kind of critical info to make any decisions.

If we don't know how many people have had it, we have no idea how far we are from herd immunity (60% needs to have had it, or be vaccinated against it). This is when things can go back to the real normal. Not, "I can do things in small groups with a facemask" normal.

We have no idea what the real mortality rate actually is. 80k deaths when over 50% of the population has had it isn't all that bad, at this point. But what if the rate is only 1-2%? We're screwed if that's the case.

We have no idea how many people are asymptomatic carriers, we have no idea

We have no basis for making any decisions right now. Let me put this into a classic letsrun meme - I walked to my mailbox today in 20 seconds...predict my marathon time.

My conspiracy theory on this is the government has a pretty good idea of what we are dealing with, and is just soft pedaling it. All of this phased reopening, stay at home orders with changing deadlines, punting a month at a time is just to keep everyone complacent. If they came out and said, you know what, we're at 2% and its going to be another two years of this, people would riot. They're just stringing us all along. Or, maybe they really are this inept.

This ^

I think they tested all MLB players or something, and saw that 1-2% number. Other tests have shown much the same thing.

IF that's the case, we haven't even seen the iceberg yet.

And there is no cure.

tarckstar wrote:

This ^

I think they tested all MLB players or something, and saw that 1-2% number. Other tests have shown much the same thing.

IF that's the case, we haven't even seen the iceberg yet.

And there is no cure.

And NY did some spot antibody testing and came up with a number around 20%. Now NY is probably one of the highest spots in the country but that is a decent chunk. If those people can't get the disease again or transmit it (i.e. a. HUGE if), that moving us to the level of immunity which will inhibit the spread in another 6-8 weeks.

People tend to be overreacting on both. sides. We aren't at the point where everyone needs to stay locked down 24/7 or we are all going to die. On the other hand hanging out in a crowded bar probably isn't a great idea either. The. stuff in the middle gets harder to evaluate. I would have no problem going out and playing golf for example. Going to a gym? Might need another couple months. Kid. going to a friend? Yeah assuming the parents aren't working at the local covid19 hospital. Kid hanging out with 30 friends in school? Not so much,.

To some extent the issue isn't going to be states saying it is ok to do things, It. will be peoples willingness to do them. Who is going to go to basketball game with 15k. of their closest friends for a couple hours even if it was allowed?

"We have no idea what the real mortality rate actually is. 80k deaths when over 50% of the population has had it isn't all that bad, at this point. But what if the rate is only 1-2%? We're screwed if that's the case."

We have a lot of data. We also have data on age groups, pre-existing conditions, hopsitalizations, and more.

Will the data change as more people are infected? Who knows. MA has 80K cases and has conducted upwards of 1/2mil tests. Mortality rates for different age groups between NY, NJ, and MA are very similar. If you combine those 3 states together you have the majority of the testing that's been performed in the entire US. Is that enough to go on? Probably not.

However, do you really think the data will change that much more (in terms of mortality) with more people that get it? We can add in data from the rest of the reliable reporting world to try and come up with an answer to the burning question --

How long do we keep things locked down until we better understand what we're dealing with? How can we best protect those at highest risk to catching and suffering greatly from COVID-19?

Who wants to be responsible for that decision? Not the President. Even most governors aren't prepared to make decisions and just look to what other states are doing.

I think we agree on most things here. I would like to see how many people have had it without having symptoms. I think that's a huge unknown. We have a good handle on people who had a severe enough case to seek medical attention, but I'm sure there's plenty out there that just rode it out at home, which was the advice when this all started.

The problem we are having now is the gaps and shortcomings with the data we have leave this open to interpretation. That allows this to become political. We may be losing our ability as a country to come to a real actual conclusion on this.

I agree with you on all those questions - I'm happy I'm not the one making those decisions. Its a lose lose situation.

Some_Local wrote:

"We have no idea what the real mortality rate actually is. 80k deaths when over 50% of the population has had it isn't all that bad, at this point. But what if the rate is only 1-2%? We're screwed if that's the case."

Why are more people not in tune with the real infection rate based on the antibody results coming in? There is no intelligent person who thinks that only 1-2% have been infected, likewise 50% is equally absurd. We have results from numerous parts of the country. While % infected varies by area the trend is around 20 people actually infecter for every confirmed case. This data is out there, stop focusing on the confirmed case count and do your research. Don't focus on studies of specific groups like MLB players that are not representative of the population.

This disease is not that deadly for most of the population. It is largely people in nursing homes or very sich, and this is the straw breaking the camels back.

The numbers would be little changed had we done nothing. Nursing homes got it anyway and children are 99.99% immune.

Helen P wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

It would be a lot worse. Study exponential growth.

This is what I've been saying all along! If we did nothing I could easily see 100's of millions of Americans killed by this horrible, horrible virus. Stay Inside! I refuse to die for your salon appointment. Stay Inside!

Nice, just waiting for the Belarus exponential graphs to become reality, probably no one left as I type this.

Real Human wrote:

The numbers would be little changed had we done nothing. Nursing homes got it anyway and children are 99.99% immune.

Yep, if we were really trying to protect those in nursing homes we should have isolated them and kept the rest of society going. Kids and college students are statistically not at risk, even with pre-existing conditions, we diagnose the crap out of everything and a huge % of the population has pre-existing conditions. There are blue-collar workers everywhere being exposed on a daily basis.

We let the hysteria dictate the response. Find one kid who passed away or focus on the social media post of a seemingly healthy 20-year-old who almost died and lets all freakout.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You said that 20 people are infected for every one that tested positive. Where did you get that statistic and how did they make that prediction? Where exactly are they doing random antibody tests to gather data to come to this type of conclusion? This number could easily be complete fiction or based on so many assumptions that its useless.

Assuming that the antibody test is reliable and based on the costs of locking down, I have no idea why the government cannot test free of charge on an enormous scale. The denominator is key to the mortality and therefore the risk.

Correct.

and for the record, I am not focusing on the confirmed case count, I'm focusing on the unconfirmed case count. That matters, and its matters a lot if we are trying to make decisions on when to return to normal without possibly killing tens of thousands and/or causing an economic depression.

There have been antibody studies in Boston, New York, California, Colorado, North Carolina. Arizona is now posting their antibody testing data. Do some homework for yourself. I'm sure there are others I am missing. I know a lot of people are skeptical of the California results that suggest 40X the infection rate of confirmed cases. But for the most part the other areas show results in the 18-25X the confirmed case range in the same state or county.

I love that the hysteria crowd immediately the questions the validity of any scientific study that suggests this is not as serious as initially thought but took the initial bogus death rates as gospel and is willing to believe any new long term illness as a result of coronavirus reported on social media is real.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

As of my typing right now we've lost 83K nationally, and the peak isn't here. Flyover states are about to be hit hard, so we'll easily double that number by the time we're back to flat - assuming this doesn't carry over into the fall and winter.

Even the feds are saying that number now, 150-170K US deaths from this.

And that's with lockdowns. You're about to see, in states such as Iowa which didn't mandate lockdowns, how bad it can get. Extrapolating that, had we done nothing, we'll see the estimate.

I'm saying 1.5-2 million US deaths had we done nothing, and that's only in 2020.

It peaked over a month ago and will continue to flatten. Worst case scenario (doing absolutely nothing, not protecting elderly, everyone getting infected) would be 660,000 (0.2%). Fly over states will be fine. The economic ramifications and our over reaction are far more damning than the virus.

Antibody tests in two locations in CA, AZ and Sweden all support a worst case IFR of 0.2%.

I did do my research, and I cannot find one single antibody study that's been done across the country.

I'm more concerned with the results of this so we know when we are at herd immunity. As I've said, that's when things get back to normal. So, don't think I'm hysterical, I'm actually saying the mortality rate is lower than what's reported.

Nicely stated.

150K dead if we continue locked down for the year.

300K if we act like you've stated.

1 million if we go back to normal right now.