Let's Try Something Completely Different on the COVID conversation

1000 daily dead in the US by Monday.

10,000 daily dead in the US by May.

Hope the summer slows it down.

I'll bite. It's a big deal in crowded cities which need drastic measures. As you stated when a certain number of citizens have gotten it then some of the restrictions should be lifted but social distancing should continue. I agree that New Yorkers shouldn't be allowed to travel to other areas of the country at this time.

I dont think it's a big deal in many of our states nor will it be as the population density is very low. They should be working.

Which side am I on? A bit of both. I welcome the comments of those who have written to calm down and those who stated we need to stave off the multitude of deaths that are on the way. What I don't like are the false data and anecdotes presented.

Regardless this is a wake up for our country. There will be worse pandemics, we need to adopt healthier lifestyles, prepare as a country and state and unite in times of crisis.

No. Most posters believe that it is a serious threat but not as much as the threat is to our freedom and our way of life and the lives that will be lost from starvation, drug overdose, alcoholism, domestic abuse, and other violent crimes. 7 million children die of starvation in Africa but we do little to save them. 500,000 may die in the US from this virus and you expect us to completely sacrifice everything that we stand for to save a percentage of those lives in exchange for other lives that will be lost from throwing our society into a depression.

Alright, let’s try this again.

State clearly whether you believe Covid is a threat.

Then state what it would take to change your mind.

I agree with this.

Live in Ohio.

DeWine and Acton are good in that they have taken drastic measures (only 15 deaths in Ohio, maybe a few more) and about 800 cases.

Biggest fear is not getting PPE to those in need more than the virus itself, as well as the stock market.

I just wanna know if the coronavirus toilet plume is a real thing or not. Like do fecal viral particles get aerosolized into the air when the toilet is flushed? That's some scary $hit right there. What are we gonna do to stop that?

Yes, it's a threat.

I'd need to see a drastic reduction in infections when warm weather returns to the West Coast next week.

* With no vaccine, and the fact that this is not the flu, but SARS, and that it's worldwide, we will lose tens of millions by the end of the year. The US alone will lose up to 5 million.

Educate Yourself* wrote:

Alright, let’s try this again.

State clearly whether you believe Covid is a threat.

Then state what it would take to change your mind.

I believe it is a threat.

To change my mind: India, Indonesia and Africa end up with a similar mortality rate caused by the flu any given year.

I’ve been trying to evidence that it isn’t a threat. However, each day it seems more and more likely it is a threat.

We all have heard the flu rate is .1%. I looked it up on the 2019 flu statistics from the CDC, found the raw numbers, and did the math.. it’s indeed about .1% (technically the raw numbers are estimates). But I thought that the mortality rates for old people would be higher. Turns out less than 1% of people 65+ who have SYMPTOMATIC illness die from the flu. I was tempted to think COVID mortality rates were high simply because it was only affecting old people. And that If only old people got the flu, flu mortality rates would be higher too. While that’s partly true, they still aren’t comparable rates and my theory was busted. Everything statistic we have indicated that mortality rates are significantly higher across all age groups. South Korea mass tested people and controlled it pretty well. I would say they have to be closest to showing the true mortality rate of COVID and they are going to be over 1% even if all of the rest of their active cases recover.

Almost every country has a mortality rate of over 1% for confirmed cases (and so many cases are still active so some of those active cases will die). People keep saying “we don’t know for sure how many cases there are so we can’t say morality rates are higher”... That’s true, but we can’t point to a single piece of evidence that the mortality rate for COVID is less than 1%... much less .1%. Also, the same can be said for the flu. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the Dr. for the flu even though I’ve had multiple times.

In addition, around 8200 in Italy have died (will likely be 9,000 by the time you read this tomorrow). ~23,000 people die each year from the flu in Italy. So in a matter of about 1 month, a new disease has killed ~40% of what the flu kills in a year. The country has been in lockdown doing everything they can to prevent the spread. It’s pretty reasonable to conclude far over 22,000 people would die if the virus could spread free the whole year. We keep testing more people yet the mortality rate is still well above 1% and there’s no evidence to say it’s not very contagious, meaning a lot of people would likely get infected, and thus a lot would die. I just don’t see how you can look at the evidence and conclude with certainty it’s NOT a big deal. Literally the only evidence I can use to say it’s NOT a big deal is to point to the current # of deaths. I’d have to assume those numbers are going to stop increasing (without intervention) which is quite frankly an absurd assumption. We have tons of interventions and the deaths are still exponentially increasing (except for China and South Korea... but they definitely took implemented interventions).

For my mind to change, we’d have to mass test people, then see the mortality rate drop to at least .5% or below (or something around there)... or we would have to stop all intervention and let the virus play it’s course. If the overall # of deaths is just slightly more than the flu, then we’re good. (But we’re not going to take that risk, so that’s not really a realistic scenario).

I really want to believe this isn’t a big deal. But every morning the statistics get harder and harder to fight. I’ve been searching for any evidence I can to convince me this is only slightly worse than the flu... but the evidence just simply isn’t pointing in that direction.

The answer is nothing will change most people’s minds. Look up the Dreyfus affairs, also a good ted talk on it.

https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_galef_why_you_think_you_re_right_even_if_you_re_wrong/up-next?language=en

People will believe what they choose and just find things that support their beliefs. Us humans are all dumb, it’s just the smarter ones realize how dumb they are and that they don’t know everything.

So for me there has already been an unintended experiment on this virus in the form of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. This gives me hope that it is not as bad as being reported.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship represented the worst-case scenario in terms of disease spread, as the close confines of the ship offered optimal conditions for the virus to be passed among those aboard. The population density aboard the ship was the equivalent of trying to cram the whole Israeli population into an area 30 kilometers square. In addition, the ship had a central air conditioning and heating system, and communal dining rooms.

“Those are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus and still, only 20% were infected. It is a lot, but pretty similar to the infection rate of the common flu,” Levitt said. Based on those figures, his conclusion was that most people are simply naturally immune.

So if the number on this ship was 80-90% I would be believing all the doomsday accounts currently doing the rounds.

OP this is a false premise. Obviously not everything is known about Covid 19. Clearly it is serious. Possible reduced lung function for the rest of your life? Possible that the virus mutates?

BUT one thing we absolutely know is that right now, doctors and nurses do not have basic safety equipment. They are short of masks. They have to 'ration' them. Do not risk their health on a gamble. If they fall, imagine the scenes at your local hospitals. The divide is really between those who think we can gamble with other people's lives and health, and those who think we owe them a duty of care.

Educate Yourself wrote:

So what I'm going to ask you to do in this thread is

1) Tell us which side you're on.

2) Tell us what it would take for you to change your mind.

1) I think it's overblown.

2)To change my mind, I would want to see a significant rise in total deaths vs. the average deaths over the past, say, 5 or 10 year period. You could use worldwide or USA only stats to make the case to me. The other thing that could change my mind is massive, (and proven to be accurate) testing showing that COVID was the primary driver of deaths in some comparatively large percentage of people and not simply a contributing factor. Both of these things will happen with time and additional studies so hopefully I'm right and we aren't all dead before I change my mind.

1b) I'm not out there licking doorknobs to prove I'm right - I'm still living as normal as possible but taking reasonable precautions like not shaking hands, etc.

We know tons about the virus. The infectious disease experts are all in agreement on what needs to happen. 6-8 week shut down. Vigorous testing, tracing and quarantine measures. Then a very slow return to a new normal (moderate social distancing measures permanently in place until a vaccine is ready). This is not a theoretical response. It has been proven effective in China, Germany, S. Korea, Japan, and the Scandinavian countries. And the opposite approach in Europe and the US has proven to be catastrophic.

What is currently happening is that the media is manufacturing a debate both for ratings and at the behest of big business, which wants to narrowly tailor a response to minimize losses. So, you get a single dissenting voice like Ioannidis that everyone from Thomas Friedman to the WSJ seizes upon to try to buck the near lockstep scientific consensus on the virus response. It is a debate that is not real. It is entirely manufactured by people in power for political and economic reasons.

My wife is an epidemiologist. She tells me that all these people (like the people in this thread) who are drawing conclusions from the numbers, should STOP. Just take the advice from our public health officials.

Really appreciate this type of thread. People, myself included, can always find ways to explain away evidence to the contrary, so very little is accomplished by these arguing, even if people are trying to be logical.

I think this is a serious threat because of how many people under 60 are having severe symptoms, and because of the potential to overwhelm the health care system so that it can't perform life-saving functions on the rest of society.

That said, the question of what would change my mind is a good one. Even if the numbers get under control, my opinion (bias?) would be that it's precisely because we've taken aggressive measures that the numbers could decrease. So I'll admit I could (in what I believe to be a rational response), explain that away.

There are two things though:

1) If a segment of the world (whether that's Texas or parts of Europe or whatever) were to "reopen the economy" and a few months later that area was still functioning better an under control. then I could be convinced that it's possible to keep things open without much devastation. I wouldn't trust a report of this out of Russia, China, or any other dictatorship or place with strong censorship.

2) Similar to OP, if it turns out that through antibody testing, there are actually 20-50 times the number of cases as we believe, then this is still very dangerous and requires caution, but it would be overblown. Right now, for example, about 0.2% of the US is confirmed to have COVID-19, but if in reality 10% of us have already been exposed, then it's worth rethinking.

Good for her. The majority of stock brokers underperform the market. So the experts in a particular field actually do worse than people who know absolutely nothing about that field. But we should believe medical experts somehow know more about math and travel and the economy and exercise and pollution and diet and mental illness and firearms and logistics. There are so many things to consider long term when making estimates about deaths from Covid 19 as compared to sickness and deaths and quality of life.

At this time I'm treating covid-19 as a threat. What would change my mind about this situation? More testing. Much more testing.

Without an accurate number of infected, we're not able to determine a true fatality rate. From what I've gathered, the current fatility rate is much higher than the true number because the vast majority of those getting tested are those already showing covid-19 symptoms. However, there will be many asymptomatic people who have already recovered or will get covid-19 and not even realize they have the virus. These folks are not being factored into the fatality rate.

What if we could test on a massive level? A perfect world where every single person is able to be tested weekly as long as necessary, no matter if they're showing symptoms or not. Then we'd be able to find the true fatality rate. If we were to learn that the fatality rate was much much lower than we originally thought, then our policy makers would be able to use the data to determine if we're taking too much action via lockdowns or not enough action.

Properly educated epidemiologists have extensive knowledge of outbreak investigation, statistics, history of such events, and more. Do you also think that you know more about how this virus, than virologists? Do you know more about hospital sterilization techniques and worker safety, than nurses? Do you know more about treatment than doctors? The advice from public health officials is consensus from all these disciplines and more.