What are you doing to protect your family against the virus?

[oliblish]

Again, look at the numbers from US CDC.

No one is disputing the numbers from the CDC.


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[moksha]

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

275,586 cases in the US and 1255 in Utah.

331,234 cases in the US and 1608 in Utah.

[alas]

Again, look at the numbers from US CDC.

This virus is just getting started. And social distancing is slowing it down, here in southern Utah, for example, we were told to start social distancing and it was sort of silly by a lot of the local’s standards because no cases had been reported in the area. But that social distancing has kept the numbers low here. By the time it really spreads, it will kill far more people than the flu does. It is much more lethal than the flu and there are no people who are immune or vaccinated. The flu does not kill 1% of the people who get it, but this kills at least that many. Currently the flu kills more total per year. But this has not even been around for a year. Give it a year and it will have killed more.

And as someone who is high risk, for several reasons, I object to the idea that only high risk people should be responsible for avoiding the spread of this disease. We cannot completely isolate in order to protect ourselves. We have to get groceries, we have to go to some doctor’s appointments. And if everyone around us is carrying the virus, we will get it and a large percentage will die. Your attitude is selfish. Your economic well being is not more important than someone’s life. Yes, a ruined economy will also make things harder for the poor, but already a disproportionate number of the poor are dying of this disease. If this disease is not slowed, more poor will die faster than because of the ruined economy.

[Hagoth]

Of the possible options there is one that says let the poor, the old, and the weak ones die to preserve the economy. Its the Jared Kushner plan. It requires taking a high level stand about where to place your priorities. Even if you choose that option you have no way of predicting whether or not an unchecked pandemic would be better or worse for the economy in the long run. Ultimately it might be much worse. The only thing for certain is that it would be far more costly in human lives.

[Newme]

Come on, guys. You know what herd mentality does - don’t fall for it again!
If you have a weak immune system, take precautions - as you probably have each flu season. When I had a baby during flu season I didn’t expect the world to quarantine - I just was more careful to avoid crowds etc.



^ Good evidence that this shut down of the economy was unnecessarily harmful. Do you guys care about the MILLIONS unemployed & who have lost a lot? This deserves more consideration and questioning than it’s getting.

COVID-19 deaths worldwide as of April 5, 2020, by country
*Look at Sweden - who has been reasonable and has not ruined their economy.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/109 ... y-country/

[moksha]

Of the possible options, there is one that says let the poor, the old, and the weak ones die to preserve the economy. Its the Jared Kushner plan.

The Kushner plan is more than that, it also involves making some money for his friends with government contracts and influence peddling.

[Reuben]

Newme, please stop with the accusations of herd mentality and not caring about people hurt by the economic downturn. It's not going to work, and will probably piss people off.

Keep watching Sweden. They're apparently at the beginning of an exponential growth curve - just after the flat part. There's a 2-week lag between policy changes and changes to the curve, and they're just starting to enact changes. They have 2 weeks of exponential growth to look forward to. My prediction: another Italy.

[Not Buying It]

You know who doesn't try and convince we are overreacting to the virus? Doctors in New York hospitals. Actually, medical professionals of any kind in any area where there is a substantial number of cases.

[Hagoth]

Come on, guys. You know what herd mentality does - don’t fall for it again!
If you have a weak immune system, take precautions - as you probably have each flu season. When I had a baby during flu season I didn’t expect the world to quarantine - I just was more careful to avoid crowds etc.



^ Good evidence that this shut down of the economy was unnecessarily harmful. Do you guys care about the MILLIONS unemployed & who have lost a lot? This deserves more consideration and questioning than it’s getting.

COVID-19 deaths worldwide as of April 5, 2020, by country
*Look at Sweden - who has been reasonable and has not ruined their economy.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/109 ... y-country/

Yeah, Sweden is a very interesting experiment and I'm very curious to see how it goes for them. I hope they fare well!

The statement you posted is not quite correct. It is not business as usual in Sweden. They are asking older and at-risk people to quarantine themselves. Street traffic and public transportation is way, way down. Based on the stats, the media photos seem to be biased toward showing more contact than is really going on. It makes for a better story.

One thing about Americans is we love to point fingers and blame people. If the economy suffers significantly because of locking down we will demand someone's head for it. If we don't lock down and millions of people die we will demand someone's head for it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In the meantime the best we can do is listen to the CDC and follow their recommendations. We have no higher authority on this. And certainly not the ravings of AM talkshow hosts.

[Hagoth]

The best for way people who are certain that this is an overreaction (who knows, maybe they're right) is to show up in droves to volunteer in virus-infected nursing homes and other infected places where they can clearly demonstrate to the rest of the world that there is nothing to worry about.

[alas]

The best for way people who are certain that this is an overreaction (who knows, maybe they're right) is to show up in droves to volunteer in virus-infected nursing homes and other infected places where they can clearly demonstrate to the rest of the world that there is nothing to worry about.

Like.

Like.

Like.

Or, those who think the elderly and vulnerable should just self isolate to protect themselves, can deliver groceries, plus wiping the groceries down with disinfectant, for all those who are self isolating to try to protect their lives.

I wonder if some of the people touting the idea of “those who are vulnerable” can just self isolate have a realistic idea of how many people that is, and how just allowing them all to self isolate would shut down the economy. Just a for instance, everyone over 60, everyone with preexistence conditions, everyone with asthma, all who ever smoked, all diabetics, ....the list is L...o...n....g. And the things on it are not at all uncommon. Now, my kids are in their 40s and they are all three married. Of those 6 individuals, 5 out of 6 are on the list of those who are high risk vulnerable for various reasons. I have 5 grand children all under 20, 1of them is on the list. OK, maybe my family is not typical, but the list of what makes someone vulnerable is by one estimate, about 1/3 the work force. So, take everyone who is in any high risk category and excuse them from going in to work, so they can self isolate and you just shut down the whole economy anyway.

No, what those people really mean is like Lord Farquad “Some of you may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” You know, that was supposed to be funny in the movie because it is so selfish, not a common attitude.

[wtfluff]

The best for way people who are certain that this is an overreaction (who knows, maybe they're right) is to show up in droves to volunteer in virus-infected nursing homes and other infected places where they can clearly demonstrate to the rest of the world that there is nothing to worry about.

So.

Much.

This.

Those folks would also likely be welcome to volunteer in a temporary morgue, or helping dig temporary graves in a park in New York.

[moksha]

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

331,234 cases in the US and 1608 in Utah.

429,052 cases in the US and 1855 in Utah.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Last supper

[Hagoth]

Update on Sweden.

Their infections and death rates are now beginning to take off significantly and people are beginning to practice voluntary social distancing despite their government not mandating it. For some yet unknown reason Sweden is seeing double the death rate of those who contract COVID-19, compared to the global average.

[moksha]

The only one tracking the coronavirus in US nursing homes is NBC News. The Feds are not doing it at all. The best current recommendation is for family members to bring grampa and gramma home right now since the chance of contagion is less in home situations.

[moksha]

Update on Sweden.

The Swedish experiment on herd immunity is an interesting idea. It is more or less how the world coped by the Black Death and other great plagues in the past. Those who survived had developed some antibodies. Will more Swedes die at the onset? Sure, but they get to enjoy their lutefisk with their friends today.

[Reuben]

Update on Sweden.

The Swedish experiment on herd immunity is an interesting idea. It is more or less how the world coped by the Black Death and other great plagues in the past. Those who survived had developed some antibodies. Will more Swedes die at the onset? Sure, but they get to enjoy their lutefisk with their friends today.

Yesterday I read a paper from Imperial College, London (from the research group advising the UK and US governments, among others) giving the results of modeling the effects of social interventions such as distancing and lockdown, as of March 30.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-i ... pi-impact/

I think the first few pages are fairly readable to anyone who's comfortable with variables and arithmetic. (And for the stats folks, the term "credible interval" they use is basically Bayesian for "confidence interval.")

They put forward a new estimate of the reproduction number R_0, the average number of people that someone infects in the absence of interventions, from which we can directly calculate herd immunity percentage. The initial estimate was 2.5, requiring 60% of the population to be immune for herd immunity. They've raised it to 3.87, which means we would get herd immunity at 74% immune.

So... not great news for the Swedes up front. One thing I'm really curious about, though, is whether their economy will hold up better if they keep doing what they're doing, and how that will influence the death rate. I hope the experiment isn't too hard on them.

BTW, herd immunity percentage is easy to calculate: it's just 1-1/R_0. This blog post at Scientific American about measles vaccination gives some great intuition for that formula:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ro ... rd-number/

[moksha]

The only one tracking the coronavirus in US nursing homes is NBC News. The Feds are not doing it at all. The best current recommendation is for family members to bring grampa and gramma home right now since the chance of contagion is less in home situations.

What the heck is wrong with the Trumpanistas in our govt? Taking incompetency to the next level is not the way to reduce the size of the government.

[moksha]

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

331,234 cases in the US and 1608 in Utah.

735,086 cases in the US and 2917 cases in Utah.