2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

[Silvanus]

I don't know that, correct. Almost every country on the planet is moving to open. Do none of them have experts?

D'you think those countries' experts might have been offering advice for their own countries' situations, and that you can't just extrapolate advice specific to certain countries to whatever country you want?

Almost every country on the planet responded very differently to the US, after all, and is doing significantly better.

 

[Trunkage]

I think you missed the biggest two: overdoses and neglected healthcare. My county is relatively untouched by covid, we've had like 15 deaths total. At the same time, we jumped from 10 overdose deaths a month to about 30 since we locked down. And then between the hospitals cancelling a lot of "elective" procedures and people generally avoiding the hospitals at all costs, a lot of people's health is being neglected. That's the insidiousness of the "deaths year over year" suggestion people make. Imagine an older man gets stressed over the lockdown and has chest pains that might be a heart attack, and then decides not to go to the hospital to avoid covid, and then dies of the heart attack. People would say covid caused that death, and I agree in a sense, but that doesn't help if we're trying to figure out how much caution is justified around the virus itself.

Additionally, the comparison isn't covid deaths vs additional non-covid deaths, because nobody dying of covid-19 isn't an option. The comparison would be to the covid deaths actually prevented. Which, I understand, is a practically impossible analysis. But that was the whole point of those flatten the curve graphs. In theory, by avoiding overburdening of the hospitals, you prevent the majority of the preventable deaths. We might not have succeeded at that in New York City and a few other early outbreaks, but at this point it seems the hospitals everywhere are doing just fine, so it's unclear what deaths are being prevented rather than just being a delayed eventuality. I'll put it this way: it doesn't matter to the analysis if 100,000 have died and 1,000,000 deaths have been prevented if further lockdown is going to save 10 covid deaths and kill 50 more elsewhere. That the scales of the numbers are so far apart is irrelevant to the cost benefit analysis of further action.

Wait, wait, wait... are you telling me that your health system in your county wasn't really affected (15 deaths). That its not under strain.

But, somehow, people weren't able to get to see doctors to make sure they didn't overdosed? (I'm assuming this means drug overdoses so going to the emergency room.)

That does not make sense. If your medical system isn't being taxed then overdose cant go up because there are free doctors to look after them. You HAVE the room. What am I missing here? Or this more US hospital nonsense or specific law/ orders that no one should ever put in place

Putting the elective surgery aside, I understand that can cause problems. I personal had an elective surgery cancelled, so I get the negative consequences there. All my family (of 4) has seen a doctor in the last month for different things on different days. You know what I don't have a problem with... seeing a doctor. Because we aren't under strain. I have to do via a stupid call in the surgery/ hospital car park and they come out if they actually need to see me, but it's not hard and I can get it done that day with non-emergency stuff. So, unless there is silly shenanigans with stupid laws (which I could totally believe), very wrong information getting (which I also could totally believe), there is part of this story you're missing.

 

[Trunkage]

You're comparing a sparsely populated island in the southern hemisphere to a country in Europe. The difference in death has little to do with the response. Current deaths in Canada: 6031. Was Canada too economically open? Don't confuse good fortune for good policy.

You know which country we have had the most case from (people returning to Australia). The US. Despite there being LOTS of Chinese or descendants in Australia. And we don't share a border with the US. So I could imagine it being worse for Canada.

I also am going to continually point out that the Swedish model isn't such a great model and didn't do very well. Bringing up Canada does prove that wrong, it just makes Canada suppression techniques less than adequate. And you may as well go for the US to prove your point here as they shut down more than the Swedes and have had almost 100k deaths. It could prove your point that suppression doesn't work at all. Your Canadian example is weak sauce compared to that.

 

[tstorm823]

That does not make sense. If your medical system isn't being taxed then overdose cant go up because there are free doctors to look after them. You HAVE the room. What am I missing here? Or this more US hospital nonsense or specific law/ orders that no one should ever put in place.

It's not hospital nonsense at all. People who overdose usually survive if they're with someone who can call for help. If they're quarantined in their own house, sometimes nobody is there to save them.

So, unless there is silly shenanigans with stupid laws (which I could totally believe), very wrong information getting (which I also could totally believe), there is part of this story you're missing.

There is very wrong information, people are hugely misunderstanding the virus. All they see is "death death, die death, die" all day long, and they act based on fear rather than reason. It's just like buying all the toilet paper. It's not actually reasonable behavior, but it happens nonetheless. People who shouldn't are avoiding hospitals out of fear.

Your Canadian example is weak sauce compared to that.

It's uncontroversial though, which makes it a good example. Here's another: where I live operated under identical lockdown laws to Philadelphia. And suffered far, far less. Because it's a rural area, that's it. If I looked at Philly and said "man, they must be terrible at lockdown, we're so much better here" I'd be an idiot who doesn't understand why the results are different.

 

[tstorm823]

Almost every country on the planet responded very differently to the US, after all, and is doing significantly better.

You're gonna have a tough time justifying any of this. Most places did not respond with more extreme measures, and at this point the US has fewer covid deaths per capita than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, or Ireland, which collectively represent over half the population of the EU. (Yes, I typed that last sentence forgetting about Brexit, but I'm leaving it as is so I don't have to do more math). The US has basically matched Europe in response and outcome.

 

[Buyetyen]

the US has fewer covid deaths per capita than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, or Ireland, which collectively represent over half the population of the EU.

Those are several countries, but there are way more countries than just the ones in the EU.

 

[Trunkage]

It's not hospital nonsense at all. People who overdose usually survive if they're with someone who can call for help. If they're quarantined in their own house, sometimes nobody is there to save them.

Okay. How would not doing a mandated shut down help? Or the 'Swedish' model? Because, and I said this plenty of times now and your still not listening, in Sweden quarantined themselves. They worked from home when they could. They socially distanced. They've voluntarily shut their businesses down if they couldn't change to help their workers/ customers. They didn't go to see their friends because they didn't want to accidentally kill them. It's really shit if your friends commits suicide. Its a whole lot worse when you unintentionally kill them.

This is really important for you to understand. Those people would likely have died with or without the mandated shut down. Because everyone was taking precautions despite what governments were asking. And, I don't think anyone has responded really well to this virus, and we can do better.

There is very wrong information, people are hugely misunderstanding the virus. All they see is "death death, die death, die" all day long, and they act based on fear rather than reason. It's just like buying all the toilet paper. It's not actually reasonable behavior, but it happens nonetheless. People who shouldn't are avoiding hospitals out of fear.

I mean, weren't we told it was going to be like the flu... and then a whole year of flu deaths happened in the US in a month. And then again in another month. People should have been told about how deadly the virus was MORE,(not less), instead of what the president said, because the US didn't take it seriously and almost a 100k died in two months. It IS a failure of the media... to not tell the people how deadly it was. They clearly didn't say die enough, or the populace would have acted more approapirtely

 

[Worgen]

Sounds like the republicans "lying about the problem and trying super hard to ignore it" phase has entered high gear.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Agema]

You're gonna have a tough time justifying any of this. Most places did not respond with more extreme measures, and at this point the US has fewer covid deaths per capita than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, or Ireland, which collectively represent over half the population of the EU. (Yes, I typed that last sentence forgetting about Brexit, but I'm leaving it as is so I don't have to do more math). The US has basically matched Europe in response and outcome.

Yes, but nobody's claiming those European countries did well. Quite the opposite. Claiming your country didn't do quite as badly as some of the other countries that did badly is no credit at all.

There's no real logic to missing out countries like South Korea, Australia, NZ, Taiwan, and as I understand even some dirt poor African countries like Ghana which seem to have coped very well.

I think you missed the biggest two: overdoses and neglected healthcare. My county is relatively untouched by covid, we've had like 15 deaths total. At the same time, we jumped from 10 overdose deaths a month to about 30 since we locked down.

Overdoses are about 70k a year. It's still well short of covid-19. Neglected healthcare is incredibly speculative, because if covid-19 really gets going, you'll have enforced neglected healthcare from an overstressed healthcare service.

Your county probably locked down before covid-19 was deeply embedded. It is therefore representative of taking prompt, early action. (If it's rural, low pop density, that will also reduce speed of transmission).

That is perhaps the point of why the response of some places was so poor. They weren't monitoring covid-19 properly or didn't want to take strong measures, and in what may have been a very short amount of time given exponential growth - potentially just a week - a modest tumble of snow developed into an avalanche. That's the difference between being a Germany or an Italy.

 

[Silvanus]

You're gonna have a tough time justifying any of this. Most places did not respond with more extreme measures, and at this point the US has fewer covid deaths per capita than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, or Ireland, which collectively represent over half the population of the EU. (Yes, I typed that last sentence forgetting about Brexit, but I'm leaving it as is so I don't have to do more math). The US has basically matched Europe in response and outcome.

Well, let's see. The dates I can see for the implementation of lockdown measures in the US range from 19/03 to 24/03, depending on the State. Relative to other countries, not terribly early, not terribly late. The point is that the response in the US is fractious: these are state restrictions, not federal, and differ hugely between States. The federal government has disowned its responsibility to provide protective equipment, arguing that this lies with the State Governors; it's left the PPE supply chain in private hands, resulting in counter-productive inter-state competition; it's resisted federal lockdown implementation, instead issuing voluntary "guidance".

And, even when such guidance goes out, it is usually vocally contradicted by the President in tone.

To go a little further back, there's a loooong history of the administration's efforts to drastically cut funding to the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the CDCs, the Prevention and Public Health Fund, the WHO... some of them successful, some of them thankfully blocked by Congress (including more conscientious Republicans on more than one occasion).

In terms of how the US is faring in comparison with the rest of the world, I think you may have listed every country there that has a worse death rate per-capita. Which would leave the US as the ninth-worst hit in the world, despite having longer to prepare than most, and being one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. Is it any badge of honour that the very worst-hit in the world were hit worse?

 

[tstorm823]

In terms of how the US is faring in comparison with the rest of the world, I think you may have listed every country there that has a worse death rate per-capita. Which would leave the US as the ninth-worst hit in the world, despite having longer to prepare than most, and being one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. Is it any badge of honour that the very worst-hit in the world were hit worse?

I ignored things like microstates cause that's too silly a comparison. But who else are you going to compare to? It's not reasonable to compare places with totally different climates. Even within the US, New England got toasted while Florida was still partying. It's not reasonable to compare to nations that aren't as wealthy, since consistency in counting is a real issue. In a like-to-like comparison, the US is pretty in the middle.

Your county probably locked down before covid-19 was deeply embedded. It is therefore representative of taking prompt, early action. (If it's rural, low pop density, that will also reduce speed of transmission).

100%, these are the case. That was obvious from day one, we shut down the whole state before anyone other than the southeast corner had an issue, and sat on our hands with empty hospitals doing nothing. Why the hell weren't we doing road work for a month!? Curse you, Tom Wolf!

 

[Kwak]

Other than multiple major clinical trials on it's effectiveness that are being widely criticized based on explicitly inconclusive small studies from America.

I found one. What other ones are there?

The first gold standard Australian clinical trial to determine whether the drug can help prevent COVID-19 is now open.

Hydroxychloroquine drug trial set for high-risk healthcare workers

The first gold standard Australian clinical trial to determine whether the drug can help prevent COVID-19 is now open.

www1.racgp.org.au

 

[Schadrach]

What is wrong with these people? Bill Gates has been one of those donating the most money to help resolve this in so many areas. He has been spending a ton on vaccine research, testing, treatments, viral database, not to mention everything he has been doing to provide food and basic necessities for so many.

Probably something-something digital medical ID something-something quantum dot tattoos something-something mark of the beast.

I mean, weren't we told it was going to be like the flu...

I mean, so far it *was* like the flu...in 1918. Actually by that metric it's not as bad as the flu could be.

 

[Trunkage]

I found one. What other ones are there?

Hydroxychloroquine drug trial set for high-risk healthcare workers

The first gold standard Australian clinical trial to determine whether the drug can help prevent COVID-19 is now open.

www1.racgp.org.au

God, I hope that works, because they are getting very cocky their with their naming

I mean, so far it *was* like the flu...in 1918. Actually by that metric it's not as bad as the flu could be.

If you have to go back a hundred years to prove a point, then maybe your disproving your own point. (I'm not claiming you are personally are trying to gaslight me with "well, we don't need to worry because it's not as bad as 1918." Just frustrated with some nonsense points lately.)

 

[Trunkage]

The Swedish model so far has only failed at one point: Keeping Covid-19 out of elderly care homes. 75% of all Covid-19 related deaths in Sweden were among residents of care homes and the reason it got in there in the first place has nothing to do with lockdowns, social distancing or anything that fancy. Covid-19 got into Swedish care homes because the Swedish staffing model for all forms of care homes (elderly, disability, neurpsychiatric etc.) is very reliant on intermittently employed staff that get called in at short notice. These are people who can't take a sick day, because every time they turn down a shift they don't get any money, so they went to work anyway and thus brought Covid-19 to the most vulnerable group in society.

If you remove those deaths, caused by a factor that would have been the same even in a complete lockdown, the Swedish death rate is not extraordinary in any way. That's not to say that the Swedish model was the best (because it is still way too early to say what the best response was, we can do that in two years or so) but rather to nuance the discussion. At this point we are seeing a lot of countries do a lot of different things and get results that are all over the place. Even countries that do the same thing get very different outcomes, which is probably due to hard to control for sociological factors, like the employment model for healthcare workers or citizen's trust in the state and intention to follow government decree.

I've only been talking to people on the ground, (and reported stats in the news which I take with a grain of salt) so it anecdotal and I'm only really talking to them about economy and way of life stuff. But I'm also claiming their "moderation' restrictions isn't helping the economy or other societal issues. Except restaurants, because it sounds like restaurants are reasonably successful still

 

[Schadrach]

If you have to go back a hundred years to prove a point, then maybe your disproving your own point. (I'm not claiming you are personally are trying to gaslight me with "well, we don't need to worry because it's not as bad as 1918." Just frustrated with some nonsense points lately.)

Combination of a bad joke, it could always be worse, and that with the right framing almost anything is true.

 

[Trunkage]

Covid-19 got into Swedish care homes because the Swedish staffing model for all forms of care homes (elderly, disability, neurpsychiatric etc.) is very reliant on intermittently employed staff that get called in at short notice. These are people who can't take a sick day, because every time they turn down a shift they don't get any money, so they went to work anyway and thus brought Covid-19 to the most vulnerable group in society.

Just a query

So, a lot of care homes here are staffed by immigrants. Like, it cured my Nana's racism sort of situation - there literally wasn't a white Australian who worked on staff except management. Sudanese, Chinese, Somali, Vietnamese, Pakistani, Sri Lankan. She got very used to other cultures.

This does lead to some problems. Europeans tend to teach independent thought and speaking up. And some had English as a second language. So these staff weren't able to shift to a new paradigm fast. But they always work through their own pain or illness to help others. Which isnt necessarily good if your sick

I know Sweden has less immigration but I was going to put this up as a further reason for potential infections, as it seems care homes use immogrants commonly in other countries

 

[tstorm823]

I found one. What other ones are there?

Hydroxychloroquine drug trial set for high-risk healthcare workers

The first gold standard Australian clinical trial to determine whether the drug can help prevent COVID-19 is now open.

www1.racgp.org.au

The other I know of is Ascot. That's the one people were saying they should stop after the US VA study.

https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/australia-covid-19-ascot-study/

 

[Trunkage]

The other I know of is Ascot. That's the one people were saying they should stop after the US VA study.

https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/australia-covid-19-ascot-study/

I’m assuming that ‘they’ said stop on a forum or the media somewhere.

I think they should keep testing, if I remember correctly the VA was just the malaria drug. If I remember that study correctly, there were lots of health complications that skewed results, thus it might work in more ‘healthy’ people