Put that all aside.
Remember-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. THEN comes the hospital visit, the fight for a test, the time it takes for the test results to come back (if it happens). THEN the number gets added. Then you see it on wikipedia or the news.
These numbers we're seeing today are a time machine view backwards to recognize infections from 14 days ago. So infections spreading TODAY will show up AFTER the current Italy-like situation has already taken hold in the United States.
If it is possible, STAY HOME.
And the "shit gets real" part only occurs 20% of the time, give or take - which means the virus might spread quite a bit while showing symptoms no more severe than a common cold. That also introduces some further unpredictable lag between any social distancing behaviors being introduced and their effects on the actual numbers.
We're using a cracked, dirty camera lens to film a small fraction of the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.... And the photo processing time is two weeks.
Death rates by age range also assume ICU care. It's virtually unheard of for healthy middle-aged people if they have access to good medical care, but plenty of 30- and 40-somethings can and have died from it once the hospitals are overrun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_I...
Source?
China plainly lied about the outcomes of the SARS epidemic and reported about half the fatality rate of nearly every other country. Hell, no Chinese person I've talked with recently believes the official numbers.
Essentially this was not in bad faith when it was published but it is now so out of date and misleading and sharing it now is dangerous in that it may cause people to ignore safety advice.
Given that people are making difficult choices right now that will impact the course of the epidemic we should be very careful sharing outdated information that could lead to people becoming infected.
China's numbers are a minimum. Many people are saying online they are a maximum. I.e. claiming that there are lots of hidden mild infections when there are not.
No, I am no. I am saying the study supercedes numbers reported by authorities. The point of the study was to scatter information on very opaque reporting.
> China's numbers are a minimum. Many people are saying online they are a maximum. I.e. claiming that there are lots of hidden mild infections when there are not.
That doesn't parse.
The way I interpreted that discrepancy is that in the presence of full testing and good ICU care, the death rate from COVID-19 is about 0.7-1%. When the hospitals get overloaded, as they've been in Wuhan and Italy, the death rate skyrockets to 5-10%. This also squares roughly with the number of people who need ICU care in places where the death rate is low. If you need ICU care and don't get it, presumably you'll be dead.
Well, substantially all of the cases that end up dying go to the hospital first, and many more besides that and up recovering. It shouldn't be surprising that the hospitalization rate is higher than the fatality rate.
This is a real issue, and I have no solutions. The only thing I've been saying to them is that all bars and restaurants will be closed here in 2-3 weeks and that their bosses will understand then. They are understandably worried that in the aftermath of all of this, there will be so many unemployed servers/bartenders/cooks/drivers that it will be difficult or impossible to get their job, or any other job, back, with no way to pay rent in April or perhaps May either.
The only thing that might help there is if warmer weather reduces the spread. But then it could very well come back in the fall.
People need to stay home, period. Unless you work in healthcare, a grocery store, or some essential service, or are going to one of the same, you need to stay home. I know there's lots of reasons people aren't staying home yet, like they don't have paid sick leave, but still, none of this overrides the sheer importance of stopping the pandemic.
So the phrasing should be "Stay home, period." Not "Stay home if possible".
But your point is right. "If possible" means "unless it's absolutely essential for your survival or the survival of others".
Pretending that the only disaster we are facing is medical is blinding yourself to the reality that we are trying to navigate our way between twin catastrophes.
[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/03/13/us/ap-us-virus-o...
[3] https://www.feedingamerica.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/2...
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/how-job-l...
Plus, all the school districts that have shut down so far have continued to offer meals for students AFAIK.
Source: - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lamvo/coronavirus-death... - https://www.santaclarausd.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&D... - https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bay-Area-school-closures...
The exposure network hasn't been trimmed to zero, but its branching factor has been radically cut down. This is going to have an effect.
You're kidding right? Under what conditions that things are fine are you preposing? If you're not taking this serious, and in the US, you're definitely part of the problem. That attitude, statistics aside, is going to get people killed.
Among the things you should have derived from reading more carefully is the fact that state I'm living in is taking it quite seriously. Personally, my hatches are battened down and I'm prepared to be isolated for at least a month, maybe two. (Have to admit it's hard to tell how far my supplies will go, I've never actually had to live on them before.)
You're talking to someone who specially prepped for this about seven weeks ago, in addition to the general prep I already had on hand. If you can match that, then maybe consider start lecturing me. I actually got a bit of flak from my wife for the amount of prepping I did, because it was before she'd hardly even heard there was a new virus. Now she's glad I did, because I bought all the things that are missing in the stores around here now long before it was "hoarding".
I'm in the top tier of taking it seriously. At the same time... Don't panic. Don't advise panic. Don't fall into the cognitive trap of modeling this as a zombie apocolypse or some other thing where the virus is intelligently seeking out victims. Isolation measures will slow the virus down. It isn't possible to keep it "out of the US" but it remains possible to keep it out of your county, or your city, or your neighborhood, with sufficient steps. Total doom is not yet inevitable, and even then, how you are impacted remains significantly under your control even if your government is feckless. Or, at least, it was, if you got your prep in before the panic rush... you may be a bit more at the mercies of your government now.
2,695 at the moment, per the NYT tracker
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-m...
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct.
I suspect by this coming weekend the US will feel very different. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a major update to official numbers came and completely changed the current state of where things are.
But one of those cases is the Prime Minister's wife.
Do we really think there are only 150 cases?
It's obviously way, way, way higher than that.
I still disagree with this, although I somewhat agree with your sentiment. The anecdotes I have seen range from extremely mild to nightmarish. A large fraction of those made me false, deliberately or by accident. I find the statistics still tell the most concrete story.
And this is with extremely limited testing.
The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. Where do the COVID-19 tests from them come from? Where are they manufactured, what ingredients do they require, how much do they cost to make, how long does it take to make them? What's the hold up on getting "unlimited" tests from the CDC? Do the tests even come from the CDC? How many are they producing a day? What are their blockers?
[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815522836/u-s-coronavirus-tes...
[1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/thermo-fisher-to-produce...
There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.