TSN: Coronavirus part 2: The world is slowly stopping

[48g90a138pts]

all we really know is that it's not as deadly as SARS but just as contagious as the flu and the other corona viruses which we live with every other day

Coronavirus | Human Coronavirus Types | CDC

right now we have 95% of reported cases (552,667) are reporting mild, and 5% as severe
Coronavirus Cases: Statistics and Charts - Worldometer

how many of those 5% are older people with a lot of underlying issues like other sicknesses? and how does it differentiate from previous years without COVID-19?

I've read that the common cold and regular flu your contagious one day before you feel symptoms. With COVID-19 you can be contagious for 5-14 days before you feel symptoms.
This is why it's spreading so fast and overwhelming healthcare system's worldwide.
It's called "Novel" coronavirus because it's "new" and our bodies don't have experience fighting it off. So for some ppl it's especially bad.

 

[guymez]

all we really know is that it's not as deadly as SARS but just as contagious as the flu and the other corona viruses which we live with every other day

Coronavirus | Human Coronavirus Types | CDC

right now we have 95% of reported cases (552,667) are reporting mild, and 5% as severe
Coronavirus Cases: Statistics and Charts - Worldometer

how many of those 5% are older people with a lot of underlying issues like other sicknesses? and how does it differentiate from previous years without COVID-19?

I agree and I appreciate what you are tabling here.
This is exactly what needs to happen right now...discussion.

 

[McDNicks17]

he asking "how is this any more dangerous than corona viruses that hundred of thousands of people die from every year in Germany?"
we don't cause there's never been testing

That shouldn't be an argument against the current drastic measures though.

It not yet being scientifically proven to be as dangerous as we think doesn't mean it isn't potentially as dangerous as we think.

 

[Stoneman89]

This is an invitation.
An invitation to listen to a leading virologist who is tabling some very valid questions and also making very important points.
NOTE: I am posting this particular video because (after much searching) its the only version I could find with a voice over as the video is in German with English subtitles.

I invite you to listen to Dr Sucharit Bhakdi from Germany who is posting this video on behalf of many other virologists/immunologists.....

Really thought provoking. Will we, as a global society, now react to other corona viruses similarly, that inevitably will very likely come our way over the next few years?

 

[guymez]

That shouldn't be an argument against the current drastic measures though.

It not yet being scientifically proven to be as dangerous as we think doesn't mean it isn't potentially as dangerous as we think.

What it means IMO is that before you utilize drastic authoritarian measures you had better have a damn good reason for doing it.
A scientifically valid reason. That is part of what Dr Bhakdi and others are suggesting here.

 

[Cloned]

I've read that the common cold and regular flu your contagious one day before you feel symptoms. With COVID-19 you can be contagious 5-14 days before you feel symptoms.
This is why it's spreading so fast and overwhelming healthcare system's worldwide.
It's called "Novel" coronavirus because it's "new" and our bodies don't have experience fighting it off. So for some ppl it's especially bad.

A few other points:

• COVID-19 seems to be able to cause more severe disease than the flu, both in healthy people and those with comorbidities. This is possibly due to the fact that it is "new" like you said, or possibly because the virus itself is more prone to causing severe pulmonary inflammation.
• Virulence and transmission is controversial still, however it appears to be as contagious (if not moreso) than the flu. Again this could be due to the fact that the transmission period is longer before symptoms arise like you said.
• The flu has both a seasonal vaccine and antiviral treatment; COVID-19 (at present) does not

It is obvious from a healthcare standpoint the differences between this and the flu, and many other "common" respiratory viruses. Measures like social distancing and self-isolation prevent needless deaths; if it's a choice between reduced personal freedom for a period of time vs. masses of people dying needlessly, I always choose the former.

 

[guymez]

Really thought provoking. Will we, as a global society, now react to other corona viruses similarly, that inevitably will very likely come our way over the next few years?

THAT is an excellent question IMO. Opportunism abounds.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

A few other points:

• COVID-19 seems to be able to cause more severe disease than the flu, both in healthy people and those with comorbidities. This is possibly due to the fact that it is "new" like you said, or possibly because the virus itself is more prone to causing severe pulmonary inflammation.

is it any more severe than the other corona viruses we live with everyday that cause respiratory issues?
Coronavirus | Human Coronavirus Types | CDC
how do we know if no tests have been done?

Virulence and transmission is controversial still, however it appears to be as contagious (if not moreso) than the flu. Again this could be due to the fact that the transmission period is longer before symptoms arise like you said.

• The flu has both a seasonal vaccine and antiviral treatment; COVID-19 (at present) does not

It is obvious from a healthcare standpoint the differences between this and the flu, and many other "common" respiratory viruses. Measures like social distancing and self-isolation prevent needless deaths; if it's a choice between reduced personal freedom for a period of time vs. masses of people dying needlessly, I always choose the former.

do we know for a fact that Covid-19 is the cause for people dying? right now the deaths around the world are from the presence of Covid-19

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I've read that the common cold and regular flu your contagious one day before you feel symptoms. With COVID-19 you can be contagious for 5-14 days before you feel symptoms.
This is why it's spreading so fast and overwhelming healthcare system's worldwide.
It's called "Novel" coronavirus because it's "new" and our bodies don't have experience fighting it off. So for some ppl it's especially bad.

but who?
Italy had 24,000 deaths in 2016/17 from the flu alone...
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(19)30328-5/fulltext

I assume the numbers are similar this year, so is their 11,551 deaths from Covid-19 alone?

 

[Cloned]

is it any more severe than the other corona viruses we live with everyday that cause respiratory issues?
Coronavirus | Human Coronavirus Types | CDC
how do we know if no tests have been done?


do we know for a fact that Covid-19 is the cause for people dying? right now the deaths around the world are from the presence of Covid-19

Yes we do. Is there another singular, acute, viral-associated cause of death more prevalent (in terms of spread and mortality rate) than COVID-19 in recent memory? Is there another singular, acute, viral-associated cause of hospitalization more prevalent than COVID-19 in recent memory? Patients with severe cases of COVID-19 are taking up entire wings in hospitals in the US and Italy (and other countries). Hospitals are running out of ventilators for patients due to COVID-19. Do you hear about the flu causing hospitals to be overloaded with patients with severe disease? Has the flu ever caused a shortage of ventilators?

Ask yourself these obvious questions and don't try to over-analyze the obvious answers. There isn't always something "more to the story." Sometimes the story is just the story.

People are getting too caught up in technicalities right now. What's the practical difference between COVID being the cause of dying vs. death due to the presence of COVID? There is none. COVID is responsible for deaths that wouldn't have happened at this point in time if COVID didn't exist. Some of the arguments I've read online (not necessarily here on HF) actually say "well, they would have died eventually anyway from cancer or diabetes, we can't blame COVID solely for their deaths." Well, yeah, but guess what the mortality rate is for humans on Earth? 100%. Everyone eventually dies. It's a silly argument to try to siphon off part of the blame from COVID to a pre-existing comorbidity.

 

[McDNicks17]

What it means IMO is that before you utilize drastic authoritarian measures you had better have a damn good reason for doing it.
A scientifically valid reason. That is part of what Dr Bhakdi and others are suggesting here.

And that's what I'm arguing against. Every expert out there will tell you it's impossible to get proven scientific numbers regarding the virus right now, so requiring them for an action means you won't be doing it.

All you can do is gamble based on what's reasonable.

 

[guymez]

And that's what I'm arguing against. Every expert out there will tell you it's impossible to get proven scientific numbers regarding the virus right now, so requiring them for an action means you won't be doing it.

All you can do is gamble based on what's reasonable.

In the video I posted Dr Bhakdi outlines proper procedure.
It was never followed.

That should have everyone asking why and not simply trying to excuse the incongruent action that was taken.

 

[BlackDogg]

As far as I'm concerned the China counts should probably be omitted from the totals completely

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Yes we do. Is there another singular, acute, viral-associated cause of death more prevalent (in terms of spread and mortality rate) than COVID-19 in recent memory? Is there another singular, acute, viral-associated cause of hospitalization more prevalent than COVID-19 in recent memory? Patients with severe cases of COVID-19 are taking up entire wings in hospitals in the US and Italy (and other countries). Hospitals are running out of ventilators for patients due to COVID-19. Do you hear about the flu causing hospitals to be overloaded with patients with severe disease? Has the flu ever caused a shortage of ventilators?

Ask yourself these obvious questions and don't try to over-analyze the obvious answers. There isn't always something "more to the story." Sometimes the story is just the story.

People are getting too caught up in technicalities right now. What's the practical difference between COVID being the cause of dying vs. death due to the presence of COVID? There is none.

the difference is how deadly the viruses actually is...we don't know how deadly it is
and that's kind of important when quarantining people

COVID is responsible for deaths that wouldn't have happened at this point in time if COVID didn't exist.

any more than the other types corona viruses we live with everyday?

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

meanwhile...

Coronavirus death rate is lower than previously reported, study says, but it's still deadlier than seasonal flu - CNN

 

[McDNicks17]

In the video I posted Dr Bhakdi outlines proper procedure.
It was never followed.

That should have everyone asking why and not simply trying to excuse the incongruent action that was taken.

He said they need numbers based on genuine, clinical cases of the the virus for models.

Basically every expert says that's impossible at this point.

 

[Frank the Tank]

And that's what I'm arguing against. Every expert out there will tell you it's impossible to get proven scientific numbers regarding the virus right now, so requiring them for an action means you won't be doing it.

All you can do is gamble based on what's reasonable.

Yep, we've been over this road before. The good doctor says the same things that most experts say - we need more data and when it pours in we'll have a better understanding of a situation. However, we still have early data, which is defined by error bars calculated from hundreds of thousands of data points. When the "no big deal" trajectory for a new virus exists in an unlikely (but still possible) regime, one would be irresponsible to not act.

I understand his point advocating for waiting until Germany has a more complete picture to act. There exists the chance he's correct (although he admits the uncertainty that remains in the data sets), but he's not the one under fire to make significant decisions with an incomplete data set. It's a much easier job to ask questions from the sidelines than be the scientists making the tough calls, who also are using studies and data as guide (let's not paint them as individuals who don't have their own scientifically valid conclusions).

At best, the shelter at home buys us time to test significantly more people, collect/process data, and define the seriousness of the problem better. At worst, it buys hospitals time to make the drastic changes required for numerous waves of patients requiring long-term respiratory care.

 

[yukoner88]

My Canadian Trucking work has dried up so I'm back to doing long haul in the states again. The news media down here is absolutely atrocious with their rhetoric and their so called reporting down here.

 

[Cloned]

the difference is how deadly the viruses actually is...we don't know how deadly it is
and that's kind of important when quarantining people


any more than the other types corona viruses we live with everyday?

Just because there is no exact quantitative answer it doesn't mean we can't apply common sense with qualitative reasoning. Have hospitals ever run out of ventilators across the globe before due to a single disease? You almost don't even need to ask any other question.

And there is enough quantitative data out there anyways to suggest that COVID-19 is deadlier than the average respiratory virus.

As for the last question, the short answer is yes, it is.

The long answer is here: What is the prevalence of viral pneumonia?

COVID-19 kills by causing severe pneumonia. Historically, most pneumonia cases are caused by bacteria. A smaller percentage is caused by viruses. Flu viruses cause more than 50% of viral pneumonia cases. Coronavirus causes up to 14% of pneumonia cases.

What's happening with COVID-19? You're getting a spike in pneumonia cases which seems to be greater than the 14% historically quoted. How do we know this? Because that 14% does not cause entire hospital wings to be taken up with associated cases, nor does it cause entire nations to run out of ventilators. So in terms of spread and ability to cause severe disease, we know it's worse than the typical coronavirus.

What else is happening with COVID-19? You're getting a mortality rate of anywhere between 1% to 4%, depending on the country. Mortality rates for the flu range from 0.1 to 0.3% I think. Even if you apply some variance due to the fact that flu is vague and probably underreported, that's a factor of 10 difference. Meaning if they estimated 30,000 deaths in the US due to the flu last year, for the variance to approach COVID-19 numbers, the actual numbers would have to be 300,000. Did 300,000 people die in the US from the flu last year? I would find that unlikely.

Which means even in the best case scenario, you have a virus that:

• Seems to be spread as easily (or moreso) than the average coronavirus or flu
• Seems to more easily cause pneumonia in infected patients than the average coronavirus
• Seems to be more deadly in patients who get viral-associated pneumonia than the average coronavirus or flu

 

[Bangers]

Site maintenance timelines here are like a Klefbom injury. I can only assume the site won't be running all day Tuesday and see you folks on Wednesday.

A welcome update of Europe. Several European countries and even Italy are showing a pronounced curve now in new cases and active cases. Recoveries are increasing, new cases decreasing, exactly what is hoped for. Other than Spain the worst appears to be over in Europe. The worst is over in Asia, Australia not hard hit. Canada, other than Quebec holding firm. Even though Hinshaw commented on the difficulties with testing today we still did 2k tests and only 29 new cases. I'll take it.

As others have mentioned RIP to those unfortunates in our province that passed away today, of this or any condition. Hats off to our remarkable Health services staff. That includes you Cloned.

Thanks as well for all of you deciding to remain a community through this time. I appreciate being able to talk to familiar people while shut in and I'm sure others do as well. Its nice that hockey fans stuck on here to check in and see how others are doing through this.

Worst isn't over in Asia. Cases are expanding rapidly in Thailand and Indonesia, and Korea had 100+ new cases in the last day. Some other countries don't have testing capability.

 

[DaGap]

The death toll from the first wave is going to be miniscule.

Wave 2 will be a disaster, You really think the public is going to listen to any more advice from the gov. Economy will be totally collapsed, millions without work and you think they will be willing to give up what little they have left

 

[Bryanbryoil]

I've read that the common cold and regular flu your contagious one day before you feel symptoms. With COVID-19 you can be contagious for 5-14 days before you feel symptoms.
This is why it's spreading so fast and overwhelming healthcare system's worldwide.
It's called "Novel" coronavirus because it's "new" and our bodies don't have experience fighting it off. So for some ppl it's especially bad.

When I first heard Novel I also assumed that it just meant "new" however I remember hearing that Novel actually means that it comes from animals AND is new to the human species.

 

[BlackDogg]

The death toll from the first wave is going to be miniscule.

Wave 2 will be a disaster, You really think the public is going to listen to any more advice from the gov. Economy will be totally collapsed, millions without work and you think they will be willing to give up what little they have left

Wish I hadn't checked in before I try to go to sleep now.

 

[Cloned]

My Canadian Trucking work has dried up so I'm back to doing long haul in the states again. The news media down here is absolutely atrocious with their rhetoric and their so called reporting down here.

Stay safe.

 

[Cloned]

I guess I've satisfied my quota of "long blocks of words" quality posts for today (for the week really), so time for a more appropriate Cloned-type post: