Corvid-19 and its impact (name edit)

[Silvanus]

Telling everyone that it's borderline harmless is actually telling people to treat it like the flu. That's probably the dumbest "let's make Trump look bad" moment so far, when the man says he's surprised by the number of people that died from the flu, they claim he literally thought nobody died of the flu. Because otherwise they'd have to answer how someone treating it like the flu knowing the flu is deadly is making it worse with that reaction.

"When I was hearing the amount of people that died with the flu, I was shocked to hear it. Over the last, long period of time when people have the flu, you have an average of 36,000 people dying. I've never heard those numbers, I would've been shocked. I would have said, 'Does anybody die of the flu?' I didn't know people died from the flu."

Also, "telling people to treat it like the flu" is incredibly irresponsible. Trump contradicted the W.H.O. on the mortality rate based on a "hunch" and gave people gravely dangerous advice.

"Now, this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it is very mild... So if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better and then, when you do have a death like you had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York, you know, all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4 percent, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1 percent."

===

"Earlier this week, I met with the leaders of the health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing".

This was also categorically wrong.

These are direct quotes; pray tell how I'm being misled by the "echo chamber"?

Telling everyone it's a hoax is literally Trump complaining about Democrats politicizing the coronavirus. Because they are absolutely doing that.

Right. And let me guess: you don't see Trump blaming the CDC and Obama for the slow testing to be "politicising the coronavirus"?

"For decades the CDC looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further [...] Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!

"I just want to add, if I might ? and to go a little bit further ? the Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we?re doing. And we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don?t think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we?ve undone that decision.

(Please keep in mind also that the part about an Obama "decision" that prevented wide-scale testing was also untrue [https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trumps-misplaced-blame-on-obama-for-coronavirus-tests/]).

===

Just face facts. It's there in his own words. These are categorically, demonstrably false statements and shit advice from the man who's supposed to be in control of the situation.

This is getting to the point of just shouting "fake news" whenever the facts don't suit.

 

[Avnger]

Just face facts. It's there in his own words. These are categorically, demonstrably false statements and shit advice from the man who's supposed to be in control of the situation.

This is getting to the point of just shouting "fake news" whenever the facts don't suit.

That's because you're doing it wrong. You're not meant to actually listen to what Trump says and watch what Trump does.

What you?re seeing and what you?re reading is not what?s happening

The correct way to listen/watch is to take his actions/words and apply a filter on them to match whatever is convenient for you at any given moment. Examples of such filters: "What he was trying to say...", "He was just joking/trolling when...", and "What he really means is..."

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

From some rational corner of the internet -

Realistically this is what's going to be the killer. Coronavirus itself is honestly...kinda benign, at least in terms of viral diseases. 80% of cases don't require medical intervention, 14% require mild to moderate intervention, 5% require life-saving intervention and its mortality rate is 1% with proper medical care and accounting for likely untested, unconfirmed cases because patients don't seek medical attention.

That's on average, because for adolescents all the way through to middle-aged adults in good physical condition it's barely a blip on the radar but the mortality rate skyrockets in older adults and those with complications. It just happens to be highly infectious and extremely difficult to track and model, because patients are infectious before symptoms manifest.

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

 

[Kwak]

I bet you really think the lack of testing in the US is Trump trying to keep the numbers down, and not that early tests weren't effective enough [https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/6/21168087/cdc-coronavirus-test-kits-covid-19], and the US focused on remanufacturing them while China used tests that have frequent false negatives.

Nothing in that article says China testing was faulty.
(edit - found it.

Laurie Garrett, the science journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the 1995 Ebola outbreak, said China?s most-used tests have had false negatives nearly half the time.

Does not explain why they refused the WHO tests)

The CDC designed their own faulty test.
https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-coronavirus-testing/

But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.

?Please provide an explanation for why the Covid-19 diagnostic test approved by the World Health Organization was not used,? Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate health committee, who represents the hard-hit state of Washington, asked in a 3?-page letter on the testing fiasco to Pence, Health Secretary Alex Azar, CDC director Robert Redfield, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

So far, none has been provided.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

 

[SupahEwok]

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

A recent CDC projection estimated that the U.S. coronavirus epidemic could infect between 160 million and 214 million people over a period of more than a year ? and kill anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the country. A top CDC disease modeler presented the estimates to CDC officials and epidemic experts during a conference call last month, the New York Times revealed on Friday. The scenario did not factor in the efforts now underway to address the epidemic, but rather what could happen if no action was taken to slow the spread of of the disease.

The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The C.D.C.-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public ?

Source. [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html]

Essentially, those doomsday, millions of dead numbers? Those are for if life went on by, as normal, and nobody lifted a finger to do a thing about it.

Which is obviously fucking ridiculously unrealistic.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

I am currently pissed off as all hell at the CDC. They're being wildly irresponsible releasing those preliminary models. In another article I read, the reason I saw that was given was "to stimulate community response".

Those fuckers are purposefully inflaming the fucking panic. People are flooding hospitals and stealing medical supplies because they think we're looking at millions of people dead in the street. I am familiar enough with virus transmission research to know that it was totally within the CDC's power to run models that took mitigating factors into account, at least geographic ones, such as shut down travel and staying home from work (that sort of thing is all node-based, and for them, if they've set up the nodes to track vectors for the worst case scenario, they could relatively simply extended that to effects on those nodes). They could have released worst case scenario numbers, and then followed up with the figures for specific mitigating factors, to encourage those factors. And they didn't. They're just letting panic run.

 

[Trunkage]

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

A recent CDC projection estimated that the U.S. coronavirus epidemic could infect between 160 million and 214 million people over a period of more than a year ? and kill anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the country. A top CDC disease modeler presented the estimates to CDC officials and epidemic experts during a conference call last month, the New York Times revealed on Friday. The scenario did not factor in the efforts now underway to address the epidemic, but rather what could happen if no action was taken to slow the spread of of the disease.

The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The C.D.C.-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public ?

Source. [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html]

Essentially, those doomsday, millions of dead numbers? Those are for if life went on by, as normal, and nobody lifted a finger to do a thing about it.

Which is obviously fucking ridiculously unrealistic.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

I am currently pissed off as all hell at the CDC. They're being wildly irresponsible releasing those preliminary models. In another article I read, the reason I saw that was given was "to stimulate community response".

Those fuckers are purposefully inflaming the fucking panic. People are flooding hospitals and stealing medical supplies because they think we're looking at millions of people dead in the street. I am familiar enough with virus transmission research to know that it was totally within the CDC's power to run models that took mitigating factors into account, at least geographic ones, such as shut down travel and staying home from work (that sort of thing is all node-based, and for them, if they've set up the nodes to track vectors for the worst case scenario, they could relatively simply extended that to effects on those nodes). They could have released worst case scenario numbers, and then followed up with the figures for specific mitigating factors, to encourage those factors. And they didn't. They're just letting panic run.

I mean, political leaders don't really listen if you don't make it dire. It's why talking about climate change has never worked. It's only when you start shrieking that others start listening.

That being said, lifting the panic levels of the populace hasn't cured the problem either.

In other news, normal flu still sucks. It took my grandmother yesterday

 

[Silent Protagonist]

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

A recent CDC projection estimated that the U.S. coronavirus epidemic could infect between 160 million and 214 million people over a period of more than a year ? and kill anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the country. A top CDC disease modeler presented the estimates to CDC officials and epidemic experts during a conference call last month, the New York Times revealed on Friday. The scenario did not factor in the efforts now underway to address the epidemic, but rather what could happen if no action was taken to slow the spread of of the disease.

The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The C.D.C.-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public ?

Source. [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html]

Essentially, those doomsday, millions of dead numbers? Those are for if life went on by, as normal, and nobody lifted a finger to do a thing about it.

Which is obviously fucking ridiculously unrealistic.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

I am currently pissed off as all hell at the CDC. They're being wildly irresponsible releasing those preliminary models. In another article I read, the reason I saw that was given was "to stimulate community response".

Those fuckers are purposefully inflaming the fucking panic. People are flooding hospitals and stealing medical supplies because they think we're looking at millions of people dead in the street. I am familiar enough with virus transmission research to know that it was totally within the CDC's power to run models that took mitigating factors into account, at least geographic ones, such as shut down travel and staying home from work (that sort of thing is all node-based, and for them, if they've set up the nodes to track vectors for the worst case scenario, they could relatively simply extended that to effects on those nodes). They could have released worst case scenario numbers, and then followed up with the figures for specific mitigating factors, to encourage those factors. And they didn't. They're just letting panic run.

I mean, political leaders don't really listen if you don't make it dire. It's why talking about climate change has never worked. It's only when you start shrieking that others start listening.

That being said, lifting the panic levels of the populace hasn't cured the problem either.

In other news, normal flu still sucks. It took my grandmother yesterday

It's a bit of a catch-22 problem where you need to frame something in the most dire way possible to get people to notice, but doing so makes it easier to dismiss as alarmist and misleading. You definitely see this happening with climate change.

I'm definitely not understanding the current panic and extreme measures being taken to shut down public life with regards to the coronavirus. I'm seeing the numbers on the amount of people infected and the lethality and it just doesn't seem to warrant the current level of response. I guess I'd rather people overeact than undereact when it has the potential to save lives. If I were to put on my tin foil hat for a minute this whole thing almost feels like a drill. It almost seems like the relevant powers are using the outbreak as an opportunity to test the world's ability to respond to the threat of pandemic with a relatively benign disease. Though I guess "relatively benign" is little comfort when people are dying.

 

[Saint of M]

From some rational corner of the internet -

Realistically this is what's going to be the killer. Coronavirus itself is honestly...kinda benign, at least in terms of viral diseases. 80% of cases don't require medical intervention, 14% require mild to moderate intervention, 5% require life-saving intervention and its mortality rate is 1% with proper medical care and accounting for likely untested, unconfirmed cases because patients don't seek medical attention.

That's on average, because for adolescents all the way through to middle-aged adults in good physical condition it's barely a blip on the radar but the mortality rate skyrockets in older adults and those with complications. It just happens to be highly infectious and extremely difficult to track and model, because patients are infectious before symptoms manifest.

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

Which begs the question, how long can society realistically attempt to hold out before its leaders end up causing more damage to practically everything than the virus itself ever would have. At this point the cat?s out of the bag, and too much time, money and energy put into damage control measures will ultimately backfire like you said. Probably cheaper and more effective to just give people respirators and carry on as normally as possible while riding it out.

Visualizing that adds a twisted kind of levity; like some dark humor TV show I remember from years ago.

 

[Saint of M]

From some rational corner of the internet -

Realistically this is what's going to be the killer. Coronavirus itself is honestly...kinda benign, at least in terms of viral diseases. 80% of cases don't require medical intervention, 14% require mild to moderate intervention, 5% require life-saving intervention and its mortality rate is 1% with proper medical care and accounting for likely untested, unconfirmed cases because patients don't seek medical attention.

That's on average, because for adolescents all the way through to middle-aged adults in good physical condition it's barely a blip on the radar but the mortality rate skyrockets in older adults and those with complications. It just happens to be highly infectious and extremely difficult to track and model, because patients are infectious before symptoms manifest.

Don't get me wrong, this is still going to be a ************. Most estimates and projections I've read are predicting coronavirus fatalities at around 1.5 million over the next 12-18 months, and that's not accounting for deaths from secondary sources.

The problems are going to be panic, suppressed economic and social activity. That's what's going to fuck us.

Which begs the question, how long can society realistically attempt to hold out before its leaders end up causing more damage to practically everything than the virus itself ever would have. At this point the cat?s out of the bag, and too much time, money and energy put into damage control measures will ultimately backfire like you said. Probably cheaper and more effective to just give people respirators and carry on as normally as possible while riding it out.

Visualizing that adds a twisted kind of levity; like some dark humor TV show I remember from years ago.

Every generation has their issues with this. Pride, tradition, and how its always been done and the remedies associated with them have probably claimed more lives than the actual disease. From Blood Letting to trying to make the air smell better to deal with the miasmas. I suspect some of the deaths in China are also due to this with traditional medicine.

Then you have those ladies that believe in essential oils. I spent the last three years in Idaho, and frankly it was scary how peole believed in them. It was as if Jesus touched them and made them holy instruments of healing.

 

[tstorm823]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

"When I was hearing the amount of people that died with the flu, I was shocked to hear it. Over the last, long period of time when people have the flu, you have an average of 36,000 people dying. I've never heard those numbers, I would've been shocked. I would have said, 'Does anybody die of the flu?' I didn't know people died from the flu."

Also, "telling people to treat it like the flu" is incredibly irresponsible. Trump contradicted the W.H.O. on the mortality rate based on a "hunch" and gave people gravely dangerous advice.

He's emphasizing his surprise at the number of people who die the flu. It's relatable. People who aren't well informed of random mortality statistics are likely to be surprised by that number. "Man, that's a lot, I wouldn't have thought the flu does that much" is a relatable way of taking in information like that. That's good persuasive rhetoric. But if you want to dismiss that, at least count for the context. The purpose of that statement was not to minimize the danger but to emphasize it.

And telling people to treat it like the flu is correct. It spreads like the flu, you can avoid it with the same methods as the flu, it kills like the flu, and it's very likely to have a similar mortality rate to the flu. In places where testing outpaces new cases and therefore the statistics have meaning, the mortality rate is looking under 1%. If you want to take the Diamond Princess as a control group, it's 1% fatal among those that got sick, and 80% of that ship just didn't get sick. It's difficult to imagine people in general are going to be hit worse than those trapped with the virus on a ship.

When Trump says the mortality rate might be a fraction of 1%, he's absolutely right.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

... And so we must give large numbers of people the choice between spreading the latest pandemic or losing their houses. Yes, thank you for that insightful commentary.

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/aishaismad/status/1239031066125623296"]

It's not political though.

 

[Dalisclock]

I hope Donald dies from the Corona virus.

Exposure to Trump is a terrible thing to wish on the Virus.

For shame.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

"When I was hearing the amount of people that died with the flu, I was shocked to hear it. Over the last, long period of time when people have the flu, you have an average of 36,000 people dying. I've never heard those numbers, I would've been shocked. I would have said, 'Does anybody die of the flu?' I didn't know people died from the flu."

Also, "telling people to treat it like the flu" is incredibly irresponsible. Trump contradicted the W.H.O. on the mortality rate based on a "hunch" and gave people gravely dangerous advice.

He's emphasizing his surprise at the number of people who die the flu. It's relatable. People who aren't well informed of random mortality statistics are likely to be surprised by that number. "Man, that's a lot, I wouldn't have thought the flu does that much" is a relatable way of taking in information like that. That's good persuasive rhetoric. But if you want to dismiss that, at least count for the context. The purpose of that statement was not to minimize the danger but to emphasize it.

And telling people to treat it like the flu is correct. It spreads like the flu, you can avoid it with the same methods as the flu, it kills like the flu, and it's very likely to have a similar mortality rate to the flu. In places where testing outpaces new cases and therefore the statistics have meaning, the mortality rate is looking under 1%. If you want to take the Diamond Princess as a control group, it's 1% fatal among those that got sick, and 80% of that ship just didn't get sick. It's difficult to imagine people in general are going to be hit worse than those trapped with the virus on a ship.

When Trump says the mortality rate might be a fraction of 1%, he's absolutely right.

Although I disagree with Trump's "hunches" on the mortality rate, actual deaths are most likely higher than currently reported due to faulty testing, lack of testing and lack of reporting. The US has been very slow to test and the initial tests were faulty. Anyone who was tested with the earlier tests should have been retested, but sadly we have many people being forced to wait weeks for a test in the first place, which is absurdly inadequate. Also, I would not really compare COVID-19 to the flu, although symptoms may appear similar. We have no immunity to COVID-19 or a vaccine available as we do with the flu, and COVID-19 is far more likely to bond with human cells than SARS since it instead targets furin, the same enzyme targeted by Ebola and HIV. This is why they are currently testing HIV medications on COVID-19 patients. Whether or not someone is on a ship is completely irrelevant to how hard regions are hit. Viruses mutate, with every person who becomes infected we have to possibility of a new mutation that could make this already bad situation worse. Asymptomatic carriers are usually more dangerous than those who show symptoms as they can infect larger swaths of people due to going about their daily business without even knowing they are sick. You should also consider we still have far too many people die from the flu even though we have vaccines and anti virals treatments to combat it, we do not have these defenses for COVID-19 yet.

Actually dying from COVID-19 is only one of the risks associated, long term health impact of severe respiratory viruses can cause life long suffering and disability. Thus far, we are seeing similar long term and even permanent pulmonary damage including fibrosis as we have with SARS and MERS from patients recovering from COVID-19. Patients who recovered from serious respiratory illnesses may still have symptoms that get worse over time and can become debilitating or even life threatening, or fatal at a later time. The damage done can impact your ability to properly transport oxygen to your organs, so it can have a greater impact on your overall health, not just your lungs alone and can cause numerous complications down the road. Due to the US not currently having anywhere near adequate resources to address large scale infection at this time, we would need to greatly increase our resource allocation to be able to remotely meet the demand. When Hospitals run out of ventilators and ECMO's, people will die waiting who could have survived if we had more resources available. In addition to the medical resources needed to combat this, the financial impact, both short term and long term will be severe. Some of the survivors will also need lifelong medication, equipment, treatment and even financial aid for living expenses if they are unable to work due to the the permanent damage to their health.


Further reading that may be helpful:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228142018.htm
https://tafcares.org/news/announcements/ipf/
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-and-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/pulmonary-fibrosis/introduction/life-expectancy.html
https://www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org/life-with-pf/pulmonary-fibrosis-treatment-options

 

[Trunkage]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

Sure, work is gives you money, but it gives little sense of purpose. AND your not using your talents, you just mindlessly following a leader, and your talents are generally squandered. (generally here, because some people are really luck and finds a boss whose actually interested in people and talents.) It's more about one a small segment wants rather than what society wants.

Sure, getting out of bed to get paid is an existence. It's just not much above a dog. Capitalism turning people into mind drones is dumb.

It wouldn't probably matter if you got paid enough to do things that makes life worth living. For 90% of the population, that reality doesn't exist.

 

[Trunkage]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

"When I was hearing the amount of people that died with the flu, I was shocked to hear it. Over the last, long period of time when people have the flu, you have an average of 36,000 people dying. I've never heard those numbers, I would've been shocked. I would have said, 'Does anybody die of the flu?' I didn't know people died from the flu."

Also, "telling people to treat it like the flu" is incredibly irresponsible. Trump contradicted the W.H.O. on the mortality rate based on a "hunch" and gave people gravely dangerous advice.

He's emphasizing his surprise at the number of people who die the flu. It's relatable. People who aren't well informed of random mortality statistics are likely to be surprised by that number. "Man, that's a lot, I wouldn't have thought the flu does that much" is a relatable way of taking in information like that. That's good persuasive rhetoric. But if you want to dismiss that, at least count for the context. The purpose of that statement was not to minimize the danger but to emphasize it.

And telling people to treat it like the flu is correct. It spreads like the flu, you can avoid it with the same methods as the flu, it kills like the flu, and it's very likely to have a similar mortality rate to the flu. In places where testing outpaces new cases and therefore the statistics have meaning, the mortality rate is looking under 1%. If you want to take the Diamond Princess as a control group, it's 1% fatal among those that got sick, and 80% of that ship just didn't get sick. It's difficult to imagine people in general are going to be hit worse than those trapped with the virus on a ship.

When Trump says the mortality rate might be a fraction of 1%, he's absolutely right.

Although I disagree with Trump's "hunches" on the mortality rate, actual deaths are most likely higher than currently reported due to faulty testing, lack of testing and lack of reporting. The US has been very slow to test and the initial tests were faulty. Anyone who was tested with the earlier tests should have been retested, but sadly we have many people being forced to wait weeks for a test in the first place, which is absurdly inadequate. Also, I would not really compare COVID-19 to the flu, although symptoms may appear similar. We have no immunity to COVID-19 or a vaccine available as we do with the flu, and COVID-19 is far more likely to bond with human cells than SARS since it instead targets furin, the same enzyme targeted by Ebola and HIV. This is why they are currently testing HIV medications on COVID-19 patients. Whether or not someone is on a ship is completely irrelevant to how hard regions are hit. Viruses mutate, with every person who becomes infected we have to possibility of a new mutation that could make this already bad situation worse. Asymptomatic carriers are usually more dangerous than those who show symptoms as they can infect larger swaths of people due to going about their daily business without even knowing they are sick. You should also consider we still have far too many people die from the flu even though we have vaccines and anti virals treatments to combat it, we do not have these defenses for COVID-19 yet.

Actually dying from COVID-19 is only one of the risks associated, long term health impact of severe respiratory viruses can cause life long suffering and disability. Thus far, we are seeing similar long term and even permanent pulmonary damage including fibrosis as we have with SARS and MERS from patients recovering from COVID-19. Patients who recovered from serious respiratory illnesses may still have symptoms that get worse over time and can become debilitating or even life threatening, or fatal at a later time. The damage done can impact your ability to properly transport oxygen to your organs, so it can have a greater impact on your overall health, not just your lungs alone and can cause numerous complications down the road. Due to the US not currently having anywhere near adequate resources to address large scale infection at this time, we would need to greatly increase our resource allocation to be able to remotely meet the demand. When Hospitals run out of ventilators and ECMO's, people will die waiting who could have survived if we had more resources available. In addition to the medical resources needed to combat this, the financial impact, both short term and long term will be severe. Some of the survivors will also need lifelong medication, equipment, treatment and even financial aid for living expenses if they are unable to work due to the the permanent damage to their health.


Further reading that may be helpful:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228142018.htm
https://tafcares.org/news/announcements/ipf/
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-and-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/pulmonary-fibrosis/introduction/life-expectancy.html
https://www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org/life-with-pf/pulmonary-fibrosis-treatment-options

When Trump did that press conference, it was so hard to parse what he was initially saying. Then I saw the virus specialist on Joe Rogan and he explained it easily in two sentences that made way more sense. Yeah, sure, you might be right Trump but you don't have the knowledge or know-how to explain it to people.

To me, it feels like a moot point. However we are under-reporting the number of cases doesn't change the rate of deaths. Sure, it could be 1% or even less. That's irrelevant if the only thing you've changed is how many cases you've found. It doesn't effect how many people died

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

Yes, existence is why we need to work, but we would cease to exist all together if people did not work together as a community to survive. Reality is why we take care of one another and not leave those unable to fend for themselves to perish. Anyone can become too sick or injured to work, and it is just part of the reality of the cycle of life. Since we do not want to be left to suffer if something happens to ourselves that prevents us from working, we take care of others who are in that situation so that we too, will have resources available for ourselves and our loved ones should the same happen to us. Just as a community works to get other things done, people also work together to prevent the spread of viruses when that is needed as well, even if that means staying home when that is what it takes to get the job done. Jobs that can be done from home should be done from home. Businesses that put their employees at risk should be taking proper precautions to ensure everyone's safety. I see no reason why US delivery drivers are being left exposed and while delivery drivers in China are given hazmat suits and disinfectant to protect themselves and others from making this worse. Greed is what is dumb, not sharing resources and taking care of one another.

https://www.businessinsider.com/eyam-self-quarantine-bubonic-plague-prevented-community-spread

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The virus is spreading because our society makes many of its people go to workplaces or lose their house, sick or not. It's not "politicized". It's political.

Work is what gives everyone everything they need to survive. It's not society that makes people work, it's existence. Communism is dumb.

"When I was hearing the amount of people that died with the flu, I was shocked to hear it. Over the last, long period of time when people have the flu, you have an average of 36,000 people dying. I've never heard those numbers, I would've been shocked. I would have said, 'Does anybody die of the flu?' I didn't know people died from the flu."

Also, "telling people to treat it like the flu" is incredibly irresponsible. Trump contradicted the W.H.O. on the mortality rate based on a "hunch" and gave people gravely dangerous advice.

He's emphasizing his surprise at the number of people who die the flu. It's relatable. People who aren't well informed of random mortality statistics are likely to be surprised by that number. "Man, that's a lot, I wouldn't have thought the flu does that much" is a relatable way of taking in information like that. That's good persuasive rhetoric. But if you want to dismiss that, at least count for the context. The purpose of that statement was not to minimize the danger but to emphasize it.

And telling people to treat it like the flu is correct. It spreads like the flu, you can avoid it with the same methods as the flu, it kills like the flu, and it's very likely to have a similar mortality rate to the flu. In places where testing outpaces new cases and therefore the statistics have meaning, the mortality rate is looking under 1%. If you want to take the Diamond Princess as a control group, it's 1% fatal among those that got sick, and 80% of that ship just didn't get sick. It's difficult to imagine people in general are going to be hit worse than those trapped with the virus on a ship.

When Trump says the mortality rate might be a fraction of 1%, he's absolutely right.

Although I disagree with Trump's "hunches" on the mortality rate, actual deaths are most likely higher than currently reported due to faulty testing, lack of testing and lack of reporting. The US has been very slow to test and the initial tests were faulty. Anyone who was tested with the earlier tests should have been retested, but sadly we have many people being forced to wait weeks for a test in the first place, which is absurdly inadequate. Also, I would not really compare COVID-19 to the flu, although symptoms may appear similar. We have no immunity to COVID-19 or a vaccine available as we do with the flu, and COVID-19 is far more likely to bond with human cells than SARS since it instead targets furin, the same enzyme targeted by Ebola and HIV. This is why they are currently testing HIV medications on COVID-19 patients. Whether or not someone is on a ship is completely irrelevant to how hard regions are hit. Viruses mutate, with every person who becomes infected we have to possibility of a new mutation that could make this already bad situation worse. Asymptomatic carriers are usually more dangerous than those who show symptoms as they can infect larger swaths of people due to going about their daily business without even knowing they are sick. You should also consider we still have far too many people die from the flu even though we have vaccines and anti virals treatments to combat it, we do not have these defenses for COVID-19 yet.

Actually dying from COVID-19 is only one of the risks associated, long term health impact of severe respiratory viruses can cause life long suffering and disability. Thus far, we are seeing similar long term and even permanent pulmonary damage including fibrosis as we have with SARS and MERS from patients recovering from COVID-19. Patients who recovered from serious respiratory illnesses may still have symptoms that get worse over time and can become debilitating or even life threatening, or fatal at a later time. The damage done can impact your ability to properly transport oxygen to your organs, so it can have a greater impact on your overall health, not just your lungs alone and can cause numerous complications down the road. Due to the US not currently having anywhere near adequate resources to address large scale infection at this time, we would need to greatly increase our resource allocation to be able to remotely meet the demand. When Hospitals run out of ventilators and ECMO's, people will die waiting who could have survived if we had more resources available. In addition to the medical resources needed to combat this, the financial impact, both short term and long term will be severe. Some of the survivors will also need lifelong medication, equipment, treatment and even financial aid for living expenses if they are unable to work due to the the permanent damage to their health.


Further reading that may be helpful:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228142018.htm
https://tafcares.org/news/announcements/ipf/
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-and-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/pulmonary-fibrosis/introduction/life-expectancy.html
https://www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org/life-with-pf/pulmonary-fibrosis-treatment-options

When Trump did that press conference, it was so hard to parse what he was initially saying. Then I saw the virus specialist on Joe Rogan and he explained it easily in two sentences that made way more sense. Yeah, sure, you might be right Trump but you don't have the knowledge or know-how to explain it to people.

To me, it feels like a moot point. However we are under-reporting the number of cases doesn't change the rate of deaths. Sure, it could be 1% or even less. That's irrelevant if the only thing you've changed is how many cases you've found. It doesn't effect how many people died

It does affect how many people died, as you have to actually test for COVID-19 for it to be listed as the cause of death, and many places even in the US could not even test until last week, and have been using faulty testing- hell there are still many places in the US without access to testing. Not everyone even has an autopsy, it is a choice unless a court orders it. In addition, you can die later from health complications caused from the virus after you are technically " over" the virus. The damage to your body is done. Essentially, if they had never contracted COVID-19 they would not die from the lung disease, heart attack, kidney failure ect at a later time. Sadly, "Cause of death" is not always accurate, especially when it is from natural causes and no crime is suspected. If they didn't actually test for it, it was never reported.

EDIT: Adding some reading on the subject:
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/nearly-half-death-certificates-list-inaccurate-cause-death
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/12/study-nearly-half-of-all-death-certificates-are-wrong/

https://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=50991

Also, unless ordered by the state, autopsies are not likely done due to the costs. Most families do not have 3-5 grand sitting around to spend on that in addition to the very expensive funeral and hospital bills. Most of the time, people are buried or cremated within a few days of their passing and not exhumed to run additional tests.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/things-to-know/autopsy-101.html

 

[Agema]

Virtually no action is actually travel restrictions to epicenters. Virtually no action = quarantines on known cases and following points of contact. I bet you really think the lack of testing in the US is Trump trying to keep the numbers down, and not that early tests weren't effective enough [https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/6/21168087/cdc-coronavirus-test-kits-covid-19]

No, I think lack of testing is precisely due to a shortage of kits because the USA decided to design and roll out a faulty test which left it far behind the game. Of course, if you want to follow points of contact, inability to test who's got the illness is a big problem. The WHO's test appears to be reliable - it was there to be used, and has been to great effect in a large number of countries. Designing multiple tests in different labs is a good thing. But the USA had a fuck-up, and it could well cost dear in the long-run. I would be interested to know what the decision making was there.

I doubt Trump had a personal hand in that, despite the incredible knowledge of science and medicine he got through his genes (re. his "super-genius" MIT professor uncle) that he claims he wows all the doctors with. Except that unlike Trump, I think the guy at the top holds ultimate responsibility - and if nothing else is responsible for trying to ensure that the right people are doing the right jobs and being aware that his appointees are doing things like scrapping special teams to oversee disease outbreak responses.

I mean, that's part of the truth: your know-nothing president, facing a national crisis, as much as possible has run away and left other people to deal with it. Where he has bothered to involve himself does him little credit and the USA little good.

Telling everyone that it's borderline harmless is actually telling people to treat it like the flu.

Except it's not like the 'flu. The suspected mortality rate is about ten times higher.

I cannot stress how dangerous that was, because it encouraged complacency: we make no particular effort to avoid 'flu, usually little more than vulnerable people such as healthcare workers getting shots. You need to seriously tell people to take reasonable precautions, and Trump stands up and implies don't bother when he says it's only 'flu.

Telling everyone it's a hoax is literally Trump complaining about Democrats politicizing the coronavirus.

The mind boggles: it is political. The government's planning and execution of a response to a significant threat is a matter of vital importance to public debate and analysis. Are you really telling us no-one's allowed to criticise the Trump administration's handling of Coronavirus?

Take those travel bans. Travel bans are a good idea. What's even better is to have the plan in preparation so everyone knows it's coming (or potentially coming), rather than have thousands sitting in airports waiting for flights and stepping off planes to find a law's suddenly arrived. It's also just fucking rude to other countries not to give them a heads-up, given that that would cost nothing. At worst, it's potentially that policy has just been pulled straight out the administration's cloaca and they didn't have time to warn anyone. And even then in a landmark Oval Office announcement he flubs some of the vital information and a correction needs to be sent out.

Then consider that Trump asked for, what, about $2 billion to respond to the outbreak? Thankfully Congress had their finger on the pulse and gave him over $8 billion. Trump said cases were going down in the USA, even as they were going up (by a lot). This is a guy who decided American citizens on an infected cruise ship shouldn't be brought to the USA for care because "I don?t need the numbers to double because of one ship that wasn?t our fault." Nice way to treat your citizens. He thinks a vaccine can magically appear in 2-3 months. Where does it end?

There were tons of emergency measures being activated before. There was no u-turn. It was a declared public health emergency on January 31st [https://www.phe.gov/emergency/news/healthactions/phe/Pages/2019-nCoV.aspx]. Get out of the echo chambers.

You know what? Yes, some of the USA's action in response to Coronavirus has been appropriate and reasonable. That's a testament to the fact at least some people in the US government are professionals with their finger on the pulse who can get stuff done despite the ignorant, incoherent gibberish dribbling out the mouth of its executive.

Unfortunately for you, what you call the "echo chamber" is just about everyone on the planet except the most slavishly pro-Trump. For instance, I work in a medical school full of professionals such as medical doctors, microbiologists, epidemiologists, etc. and they have a very poor opinion of Trump's response to the outbreak.

Realistically this is what's going to be the killer. Coronavirus itself is honestly...kinda benign, at least in terms of viral diseases. 80% of cases don't require medical intervention, 14% require mild to moderate intervention, 5% require life-saving intervention and its mortality rate is 1% with proper medical care and accounting for likely untested, unconfirmed cases because patients don't seek medical attention.

That's on average, because for adolescents all the way through to middle-aged adults in good physical condition it's barely a blip on the radar but the mortality rate skyrockets in older adults and those with complications. It just happens to be highly infectious and extremely difficult to track and model, because patients are infectious before symptoms manifest.

Unfortunately, how infectious it is and how easy it is to control are major factors for how dangerous a disease is.

An an analogy, consider saying alcohol is a benign drug of abuse. In terms of harm to the individual, sure: most people consume alcohol with few or no problems, and it's far less damaging than stuff like opioids or crystal meth in that respect. However, it's actually the most damaging drug in terms of wider societal costs in many Western countries (and where not, it's only beaten by tobacco), greater than all illicit drugs put together.

Ebola, for instance, is devastating to contract. But on a public health level it's so quick and lethal that it tends to "burn itself out". In many ways, it would probably be less societally problematic than the covid-19 outbreak.

 

[Agema]

Sure, work is gives you money, but it gives little sense of purpose.

I disagree. I think most people derive a great sense of purpose from work. Or "self-worth" anyway, through feeling useful. They are unhappy with work when they feel their job is of little worth. They could get that positive self-image by other means than jobs, though. I'm sure some of the sense of the virtue of work derives from the fact work is central to most people's lives and a common societal measure of value (in the same sort of way salary is perceived to equate to societal worth).

The dream of communism (or Star Trek's Federation) is that if freed from the shackles of work we make our own model of how to find our fulfillment, rather than be forced to accept that of society. And, implicitly, its socio-economic leaders because they have one hell of a vested interest in working us for their benefit. But we have the society we do, so...

He's emphasizing his surprise at the number of people who die the flu. It's relatable.

No he isn't. There are elements of facts and reasoning popping up in those sorts of statements, but mangled and mashed up such that he's farting unclear, incoherent, poorly considered ideas out of his head.

You're just straining your credulity to fit some sort of comforting message into it because you're Team Trump.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Virtually no action is actually travel restrictions to epicenters. Virtually no action = quarantines on known cases and following points of contact. I bet you really think the lack of testing in the US is Trump trying to keep the numbers down, and not that early tests weren't effective enough [https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/6/21168087/cdc-coronavirus-test-kits-covid-19]

No, I think lack of testing is precisely due to a shortage of kits because the USA decided to design and roll out a faulty test which left it far behind the game. Of course, if you want to follow points of contact, inability to test who's got the illness is a big problem. The WHO's test appears to be reliable - it was there to be used, and has been to great effect in a large number of countries. Designing multiple tests in different labs is a good thing. But the USA had a fuck-up, and it could well cost dear in the long-run. I would be interested to know what the decision making was there.

I doubt Trump had a personal hand in that, despite the incredible knowledge of science and medicine he got through his genes (re. his "super-genius" MIT professor uncle) that he claims he wows all the doctors with. Except that unlike Trump, I think the guy at the top holds ultimate responsibility - and if nothing else is responsible for trying to ensure that the right people are doing the right jobs and being aware that his appointees are doing things like scrapping special teams to oversee disease outbreak responses.

I mean, that's part of the truth: your president, facing a national crisis, as much as possible has run away and left other people to deal with it. Where he has bothered to involve himself does him little credit and the USA little good.

He did have a personal hand in it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised
https://apnews.com/ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdc-coronavirus-test-lab-may-have-been-contaminated-report.html

If Trump had not fired the Pandemic team and had properly funded it, the response would not have been so botched, as we would have actually been prepared and have had proper oversight. The entire approach was delayed due to him having to attempt to assemble a team after the fact rather than have the pros working on their own before he was even aware of it. Trump is lackadaisically ignorantly reactive rather than proactive.

No one should have been having to answer questions from the President of the United States about what a "solid flu shot" would do to a completely unrelated virus. It is terrifyingly humiliating to the nation to say the least. I honestly think a pet rock would do a better job of running the country, at least we could let the experts in their fields actually do what they are good at and not have some bozo keeping them from doing their job because he thinks his " hunches" are the equivalent to decades worth of research.