If they gave people accurate statistics they could make an informed decision whether they want to go to a hospital.
More than 70k have died in the US so far - are we also going to blame the media for not scaring people early enough, or is that too inconvenient?
Even so, medical systems and coroners ought to be archiving samples for testing. Eventually there'll be adequate RNA and antibody testing capabilities. Without that data, we won't know what happened.
When we come out of this, who will be left behind? And how many of those lives could’ve been saved if we weren’t in quarantine? That’s not to say the quarantine isn’t necessary, but it’s an important question to ask, as its a significant cost that isn’t obvious.
Where do you live ? They don't have phone or Internet ?
I exchange daily with every people I call friend; I exchange daily with my close family; I exchange weekly with the rest of my family and people I don't consider friends but still care about.
I'm not a health worker nor someone working in something that matters and I have the luck to still be able to work from home so I've seen as my duty to make sure everyone I care about doesn't feel abandoned and is okay.
I'm not judging or anything but it seems odd to me to call someone a friend and still don't make anything possible to be sure they're safe in those dark times.
How thoroughly do deaths of the elderly and infirm get looked into as per the cause?
They are at home, watching their debt grow and wondering how they will be able to find a new job to pay their bills.
1. Don't do this, go to the hospital if you feel something different in your chest.
Is there research showing people are more sedentary now?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52416330
As a counter anecdote, I know many people that only leave their house a few times per week, including for walks. They are definitely more sedentary now.
I don't have any data, but I imagine that explains the similar serious accident rate.
no, that's a big extrapolation..
one possible counterpoint: couples in healthy relationships could still be going out more, whereas those in dysfunctional ones might be fighting more due to more proximity or exascerbated economic hardship
There's nothing for the USA as a whole, it will be compiled from states' records and estimates eventually. But it already seems obvious to me that the excess deaths in the next few years from secondary effects (avoiding hospitals, drug overdoses, suicides, stress/panic attacks, less traffic/police on roads, etc) will far outnumber the deaths where COVID-19 took away more than one year of life. I'm probably still in the minority with that belief.
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/05/06/majori...
As far as I can tell the numbers are statistically computed estimates, based on real reported deaths, so it's not actual counted deaths, and there's still reporting lag skewing the last couple of weeks.
Some of this is inevitable. Some of this is due to economic lockdown, which will simply crush third-world economies.
Believe I also read that there's a vaccination window for TB--it doesn't work for adults. So each year of lowered vaccination coverage matters that much more. Globally a million people die of TB each year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/patients-with-heart-at...
> The possibility that patients may be suffering — and even dying — at home rather than going to a hospital led the American College of Cardiology to launch a “Cardiosmart” campaign last week, attempting to reassure a wary population and encourage those with symptoms to call 911 for urgent care and to continue routine appointments, through telemedicine when practical: “Hospitals have safety measures to protect you from infection,” it reads.
> “The emphasis here is safety,” said Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and health care researcher at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital, who advised on the campaign. “We want to make sure preventable deaths aren’t happening.”
> There is no pill, no action, no behavior, he said, that could account for the almost 40 percent drop in STEMI patients. “We don’t have a means to cut your risk in half,” he said. “Not even primary angioplasty or stopping smoking.”