Scientists are still trying to understand the virus they call SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19, but as time goes by and more data is amassed, some numbers, such as the death rate from the disease are becoming clearer.
Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post:
When the CDC put out its guidance last week, it estimated that 0.2 to 1% of people who become infected and symptomatic will die. The agency offered a “current best estimate” of 0.4%. The agency also gave a best estimate that 35% of people infected never develop symptoms. Those numbers when put together would produce an “infection fatality rate” of 0.26, which is lower than many of the estimates produced by scientists and modelers to date.
If the severity of COVID-19 has been significantly overestimated, and further research confirms this, critics of the national shutdown will cite this as evidence that the country overreacted to a virus that is not that much worse than seasonal influenza…
The lethality of the virus has been hard to estimate because of the lack of testing and the paucity of solid data on how many people have been infected. That data is now coming in, however, including a report by researchers at the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles County health department, published in JAMA, that described a survey of Los Angeles County residents who were tested for antibodies to the virus. The authors estimated that about 4% of the population had been infected as of April 10 and 11.
Although the report did not offer an infection fatality rate, lead author Neeraj Sood, a professor of health policy at USC, said it would probably be 0.13% for people outside nursing homes and 0.26% — identical to the CDC best estimate — when people in nursing homes were included. No one in the survey lives in a nursing home. All of the volunteers tested were “community-dwelling individuals,” he said.
…An Imperial College model that in late March said 2.2 million people in the United States could eventually die if the country took no measures to halt viral transmission.
The White House coronavirus task force relied on that model and a number of others, including one from the University of Washington. When Trump extended the closure recommendations by 30 days on March 31, members of his task force revealed a forecast, based on many models. Even with social distancing and other mitigations, it showed, the coronavirus would kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people over some unspecified period of time.
That number was stunning. The death toll was still less than 4,000 nationally.
The forecast now looks well-founded, with hundreds of deaths added daily and a vaccine or reliable therapeutic treatment still probably far in the future… The decision by Trump to order an initial 15-day national shutdown came March 16, when the country had reported only 85 deaths, according to a Washington Post tally. Models — however imperfect and dependent upon assumptions that might be incorrect — gave political leaders and the public an accurate sense of the likely scale of the COVID-19 epidemic facing the nation…
One common misperception today is that scientists oppose the reopening of the economy. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a television interview Friday that if stay-at-home orders were imposed for long, it would cause “irreparable damage,” but he urged people to “please proceed with caution.”
Jeffrey Shaman, an influential epidemiologist at Columbia University, said that the health of the economy matters, and that the nation needs to restore economic activity in a way that keeps people safe. “We have to do both those things,” Shaman said. “We want a functioning economy, and we don’t want people getting sick.”
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, no once can predict the future, so the early models offered a very wide range of possibilities, including a higher COVID-19 death rate. So, it’s great news that 99.74% of people (and likely 99.87% of people outside of nursing homes) who encounter SARS-CoV-2 do not die from COVID-19. As more and more data gets added to what’s known about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, we, and, specifically, businesses like Apple with their large network of physical retail stores, will have a clearer picture about how to wisely proceed with reopening and resumption of “normal” life.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
“Our Santa Clara seroprevalence study is now out. It shows 50-85 times underestimated number of infections, therefore 50-85 times overestimated infection rate fatality. True infection rate fatality is in the ballpark of seasonal influenza.” — Dr. John Ioannidis
Absolutely correct.
This is nothing more than a Democrat biased media driven effort to sink the record economy and deny President Trump a second term. I finally said what common sense has been saying for months.
I have read “estimates” FAR LOWER than reported here and only points out estimates are as reliable as the tooth fairy keeping up with the rate of inflation.
The fatality rate in Pennsylvania is a GLARING example — 70% of deaths from C19 are in nursing homes where families pay ridiculous money ($200 a day and up) which should be the safest place for loved ones.
BOTTOM LINE: The best care facilities have major problems and they CANNOT control the virus, so how can politicians control the streets, trails and churches?
ANSWER: IMPOSSIBLE.
Overdue and time to MARCH ON…
The RICH and the GENTRY class can hide out, have better heath care and don’t worry about the lower levels, but others like you suck up without fail on cue.
“The RICH and the GENTRY class can hide out,”
Anyone can hide out you don’t need money to do so. What a stupid stereotypical thing to say, and at the same TIME SAYING NOTHING…
With all due respect, you are completely wrong.
Mostly from the perspective of the fact that this low fatality rate is due to our medical technologies to keep those breathing via ventilators.
If we did not control the spread (thank you Democrats for understanding what a worst case scenario means!!) you would see far more deaths from those who would not have been able to get to the hospitals if all the beds were filled.
This is not a democratic effort like you claim because trump did all the damage to himself that he would need to deny himself a second term, but an effort to keep you alive; even if you clearly can’t see that.
Thanks for contributing to the problem by spreading misinformation!!
U.S. Swing State Independents: President Trump Is Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic Better Than Biden Would
The poll, which tested top battleground states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, shows that Trump leads Biden 46-45 in terms of handling COVID-19, as well as leading the presumptive Democratic nominee 45-43 when it comes to putting the middle class first. Considering the Democrats appear to be shaping up their narrative on the fact that 100,000 Americans died from this virus on Trump’s watch, and that 36 million people are unemployed because of it, it isn’t a good sign for Biden or Democrats in general.
In a hypothetical match-up, Trump holds a narrow, 48%-46% lead over Biden among all the battleground voters surveyed, including a 41%-32% lead among independents. The President also leads Biden 51%-40% in who would do a better job handling the economy.
Joe “You Ain’t Black” Biden is a R-A-[ ]-I-S-T (insert a “C” or a “P” in the space, either one works) and stumbling, mumbling gaffe, and has been for years. The numbers will get even worse for Biden before November.
“This is not a democratic effort like you claim because trump did all the damage to himself that he would need to deny himself a second term, but an effort to keep you alive; even if you clearly can’t see that.”
Disrespectful Democrat it’s President Donald J. Trump.
I see a ridiculous partisan opinion that amounts to, wait for it — NOTHING.
“Thanks for contributing to the problem by spreading misinformation!!”
What misinformation? Like Blue states can’t figure out how to work with Red states and President Trump to get the USA back on its feet to benefit EVERYONE?!?!?!
Thank you for proving my POINT…
Mr. Donald John Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America, has spent the last week contributing to bipartisanism by calling for the criminal prosecution of his predecessor, asserting that a former Vice-President is demented, referring to the 42d First Lady as a skank and the person second in line of succession to his office as a drunk. He has accused his own former Attorney General of being very weak and very sad, and has pushed a complete fabrication that a former Republican Congressman is a murderer. He tweeted on Memorial Day that a decorated U.S. Marine (currently a Major, USMCR) is a fraud, while misspelling the man’s name and claiming he voted for the current Speaker when he did not. He sent tweets from a golf trip accusing the 44th President of playing too much golf, despite the fact that he has cost American taxpayers $160 million (some of it paid to his own business) while playing golf on 270% more days than his predecessor.
I wonder why Blue States can’t understand how eager Mr. Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, is to work with them towards bipartisan solutions for national problems.
But but Joe IS demented and dementiamented, and the 42nd hoe is a hoe! Honestly tax man stop telling us the obvious truth and pretending it isn’t obviously true, go back to your job at the IRS buttfuqqing hardworking Americans.
Don’t forget his mention of Nancy having “mental problems.” I don’t believe he was happy with her mention of his need to make a Jenny Craig appointment (not verbatim).
“I wonder why Blue States can’t understand how eager Mr. Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, is to work with them towards bipartisan solutions for national problems.”
Why not work together?
You just answered your own partisan question and are too stupid to realize it.
Nuff said…
GeoB,
Let’s be honest here. I have no evidence that you are a murderous fat Alzheimer’s patient who drinks too much, has betrayed his country, and is married to a skank. However, if I were to call you that in the course of a request for your help in doing my job, how willing would you be to cooperate?
I’m sure that suspiciously low number is of great comfort to the 98,426 people who have died and their families.
Although death is a very sad and sometimes tragic situation, it is part of everyday life. Stop the fear-mongering…over 2.8 MILLION people die every year in the US… so far more people have already died from other causes than from COVID in the same amount of time. BTW, over 40,000 people have died in the US from this year’s flu. Is that any less tragic? Should we shut down the world over that too? Get a grip!
Every public policy decision involves balancing costs against benefits. Nobody thinks the country can or should be shut down forever. That does not mean that it is a good idea to drop all public health measures overnight, particularly in areas that still have rising caseloads and stressed medical infrastructure. That carries too many risks to justify the possible benefits. Human lives do have value. You can’t avoid death and taxes entirely,but you can take reasonable steps to minimize them.
The alternative? Since death is a part of everyday life, I guess we should stop enforcing the homicide laws. Criminals only kill about 16,000/year. Lots more people die from other causes, so murder can’t be a big deal. The cops and prosecutors that pursue those few cases raise the taxes on honest working folks. Besides, the laws against shooting and stabbing people may have a chilling effect on the Second Amendment.
How does the Donne poem go?
Every man is an island, entire of itself.
Every man his own continent,
Not a piece of the main.
Nobody’s death diminishes me,
Because I refuse to become involved
In mankind.
Therefore, never send to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for somebody else and why should you care?
I guess we should stop reading BIASED STUPID POSTS…
Yep, people die every day from old age, from eating healthy and exercising and taking vitamins. Most people die from that.
You need to be special to die of cancer, obesity, flu, diabetes, accident, etc. Dying from COVID is like winning the afterlife lotto, you will be very famous in the next world going out like that.
The bell tolls for us all eventually, when the grim reaper is ready to get you, well he’ll make you the Democratic presidential candidate and will make sure some accident happens so Hillary steps in at the last moment to lose the election all over again.
You Americans are very funny like that, history repeating itself. It’s almost like you’re Joe Biden with a record of over 40 years which makes you qualified to beat the hairy legged lap loving Joe Biden. Weird!
With ALL the extraordinary efforts this country (and world) has done (by ignoring the President) we STILL have two and a half times the death rate as your “normal” flu while it overwhelmed hospitals across the country. If we followed Trumps advice, the number would have been much, much higher.
If you think the death total will stop at 100,000, then you are not paying attention. If Trump keeps doing what he is doing (or more accurately not doing) and encourages his minions to spread the virus by not doing simple, simple social distancing, then the death rate will continue to clime as we suffer wave after wave of new outbreaks.
For “Just the Facts” you are not very good with the facts. The fact is that social distancing has NO bearing on the number of deaths at this time. Capacity has been increased SO MUCH that this is no risk of the medical system being overwhelmed. The worst part of the cycle of the virus is over…
BUT that does NOT mean that the number of deaths will stop. It will still take at least a couple of months or more for the virus to spread enough to finally stop.
So far, the spread of the SARS-COV2 virus is tracking about the same as H1N1 back in 2009/2010. It took 14 months for it to finally stop its spread (in any meaningful level, as it is actually still around). It infected about 61 MILLION people in the US alone. But the fatality rate of H1N1 was 0.5%, TWICE that of COVID-19. Yet when was the last time you even thought about H1N1 and took ANY precautions against it? Mask anyone?
And BTW there are MANY case studies that show that social distancing would have little impact to the over all result. In fact, just the opposite. Not to mention the fact that the lock-downs have caused an untold and immeasurable negative impact that FAR outweighs the impact of the W/C-virus; long-term financial devastation, decreased mental even leading to increased suicides, domestic violence, family abuse, missed life-saving medical treatments and surgeries leading to deaths, etc….robbing Peter to pay Paul…
Get the facts, mr. “Just the Facts”.
What are you talking about? H1N1 infected 61 million Americans and killed 12,000. Fatality rate of ~0.02% which is one tenth of the current COVID-19 fatality rate estimates.
Don’t lose the forest for the trees. The comparison is to the worldwide stat of 0.5% death rate for 2009 H1N1. But you are missing the bigger picture.
The only reason the overall W/C-virus death rate is 0.26% is because the rate is 0.4% when factoring in nursing homes, with ages over 65. Instead, the COVID-19 death rate is now estimated to be only 0.09% for those less than 65. Yes, it is higher than the average flu BUT for perspective, your risk of dying from COVID-19 is lower than most common causes of death, including dying from a car accident.
Welcome to MDN Governor Cuomo. How’s that nursing home problem going. I’m sure all those in nursing homes were very much appreciative of their new Covid-19 affected roommates.
Cuomo is a Cuomurderer. He will be harshly treated by his constituents who will never forget that this little dictator caused the deaths of so many New Yorkers. This horrible slime is worse than Governor Newsance in CA.
By that logic AIDS didn’t kill anyone.
@applecynic wow, I had NO idea…thanks for intelligently adding to the conversation :-\
Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won’t get COVID if I get an abortion but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy. Selling pot is essential but selling goods and services at a family-owned business is not. Pot wasn’t even legal and pot dispensaries didn’t even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not.
A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without contracting COVID but, if they all get in the same boat, they will. We are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it, but summer youth programs, sports programs are cancelled. Four people can drive to the golf course and not get COVID but, if they play in a foursome, they will. If I go to Walmart, I won’t get COVID but, if I go to church, I will. Murderers are released from custody while small business owners are threatened with arrest if they have the audacity to attempt to feed their families.
Our economy is shut down because of a flu virus with a 98 percent plus survival rate. Doctors and experts say different things weekly. The defendant cites models in his opposition. The only thing experts will agree on is that all models are wrong and some are useful. The Centers for Disease Control now says the virus is not easily spread on surfaces.
The defendant in this case orders you to stay home and pronounces that, if you leave the state, you are putting people in danger, but his family members traveled to Florida and Wisconsin because he deems such travel essential. One initial rationale why the rules don’t apply to him is that his family farm had animals that needed fed. Try selling that argument to farmers who have had to slaughter their herds because of disruption in the supply chain.
When laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled. Make no mistake, these executive orders are not laws. They are royal decrees. Illinois citizens are not being governed, they are being ruled. The last time I checked Illinois citizens are also Americans and Americans don’t get ruled. The last time a monarch tried to rule Americans, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That day led to the birth of a nation consensually governed based upon a document which ensures that on this day in this, any American courtroom tyrannical despotism will always lose and liberty, freedom and the constitution will always win.
— Clay County Judge Michael McHaney
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Legal Eagle, this is why Americans have a second amendment and they are not afraid to uphold it. The Chinese people would love to have something similar and deadbeats like Dementia Joe want to steal this away from the USA. Down with deadbeat democrats who hate not only the idea of America but America itself.
Approximately 100,000 confirmed deaths? 0.26% fatality rate. That suggests about 38 million people so far have been infected in the US, or about 10% of the population. Seems possible However, there has never been a seasonal flu season with 100,000 deaths. The absolute worst ever was 2017-20180, with about 80,000 estimated deaths. The actual confirmed deaths from the flue every year is usually somewhere under 30,000.
It’s pure conjecture from here on out. But for the sake of discussion, assume about 60% of the population has to become immune to give us “herd immunity.” That means that, in the absence of a vaccine, we need to have about six times more pole infected and at the current death rate being touted here, that would result in about 600,000 deaths. Whether that would be a fare trade off for a somewhat better economy depends, I guess, on your political perspective.
Sorry for the typos. Trying to work this response into my schedule as I am still working.
If you’re still working, you don’t fully get it. Try not eating or paying your mortgage payment (if you haven’t simply already purchased your home outright, as I suspect).
As a doctor, here is something you might be able to get:
Prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications, such as Klonopin and Ativan, rose 10.2% in the U.S. to 9.7 million in March 2020 from 8.8 million in March 2019, according to the latest data from health-research firm IQVIA. Prescriptions for antidepressants, including Prozac and Lexapro, rose 9.2% to 29.7 million from 27.2 million in the same period. The information doesn’t include data on whether dosages have increased along with prescriptions.
Some companies have seen more dramatic increases. Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit manager owned by Cigna, says prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications rose 34.1% between mid-February and mid-March, while prescriptions for antidepressants and sleep medications increased 18.6% and 14.8%, respectively. Ginger, which supplies video- and chat-based mental health services to companies, says its psychiatrists wrote 86% more prescriptions for psychotropic drugs, primarily antidepressants, in March and April 2020 compared with January and February. — Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2020
Agreed, people whose jobs haven’t been lost are more likely to want to err on the side of continued lockdown, but that’s shortsighted — those businesses will suffer from the economic depression eventually even if they aren’t today.
Comparison to the flu is of course beside the point. If the seasonal flu has a ~.15% fatality rate, the 80,000 deaths a couple of years ago means 53,000,000 people were infected with the seasonal flu with no special intervention whatsoever.
By comparison, after a near complete shutdown of American society this year, closing businesses and enforcing stay-at-home rules for the vast majority of the population, the .26% fatality rate lined up against 100,000 deaths says 38,000,00 people have been infected despite MASSIVE intervention. Absent these measures, the infection rate would / will be massive, the death toll would / will be massive (in number, even holding to the relatively small percentage of cases).
And of course the death toll would be worse than the math says because the hospitalization rate would overwhelm the medical system. As a result the covid deaths would be higher than .26% because some people who could be effectively treated and released from hospital care will not be able to get that treatment.
Compounding that further would be deaths unrelated to covid except that hospitals will be unable to effectively treat non-covid patients, driving the actual death rate from covid itself PLUS those resultant from the systemic effects of covid even higher. Imagine the simple infection that goes untreated because of the wait for a doctor.
Please consider when you do your math and even if you decide that the fatality rate (same as flu) or deaths derived from that rate (.26% of the US population, skewed heavily toward the elderly; that’s 800,000 people in real numbers) are acceptable losses, that the actual deaths would almost certainly end up being much much higher even than those numbers.
It is interesting that so many people are willing to suggest that 600,000 deaths is acceptable because as many as 400,000 of them would be from the “Greatest Generation” that we honored just yesterday on Memorial Day.
Practicing Physician’s 600,000 deaths assumed that about 10% of the US population has already acquired immunity. The measured percentage in Los Angeles County is 1%. You can do the math yourselves.
“It is interesting that so many people are willing to suggest that 600,000 deaths is acceptable because as many as 400,000 of them would be from the “Greatest Generation” that we honored just yesterday on Memorial Day.”
It is not so interesting that your 🐂💩OPINION is FALSE…
@GoeB – Playing golf does not honor the “Greatest Generation”
I’m so tired of hearing from you. I come her for Mac News, and you post your quasi-political drivel on every story. (I say quasi, because it’s really more in line with propaganda.)
I’m trying to figure out who hurt you that you have become such a political incendiary. It’s fine to have opinions–not everyone is going to feel the same way. But you’re just tiresome.
I know of 100,000 people (in just the US) that are no longer eating or paying mortgage. You do too.
And that is from pure lack of leadership.
Thank you for sparing me the typing!
Of course a doctor would be financially secure and easily able to take an extended vacation. Tell it to the people how Democrats supposedly “care” so much about, those living paycheck to paycheck. This is ruining those people. Suicide is up. Divorce is up. In the end, you will kill a lot more people and destroy a lot more VIABLE people’s lives than by simply quarantining the nursing homes as should have been done in the first place. 400K of your imagined 600K deaths would take place in nursing homes.
“Social distancing” wasn’t supposed to stop anyone from contracting the virus. It was never about prevention. The point has always only been delay.
Americans will continue to get infected until so many of us have developed immunity that the virus no longer has enough carriers to make its way to the rest. At that point, even those who don’t have biological immunity will be protected by herd immunity. Until then, there’s absolutely no reason to think the virus is going away.
The upshot is that, even if all the scary projections about COVID-19 we heard were true, the restrictions imposed on us make no sense since there’s no way we’d even be able – let alone willing – to stay locked in our homes unable to earn our daily bread for the many months it will take to develop a vaccine.
Indeed, since there’s no guarantee at all that we’re ever going to develop one, it’s hard to understand how what we’re doing could make much sense under any circumstances.
President Trump needs to admit this prolonged lockdown was a mistake, put the whole humiliating episode behind us, determine what in God’s name Fauci, Birx, and the others who gaslit America into suicidal delusions thought they were doing, see that they’re duly punished, and, not least of all, make sure nothing even remotely similar ever happens again. — Michael Thau, “The Hardest Thing About This Lockdown May Be Admitting to Ourselves That It Accomplished Absolutely Nothing” – May 23, 2020
++++++++++++++++++++1
0.13% for people outside nursing homes, doc.
Protect nursing homes, instead of injecting COVID-19 into them a la Cuomo the Retarded, and we’ll do just fine. That’s all that should have been done in the first place and we’d still have an economy and people wouldn’t be killing themselves, beating their spouses, not going to the hospital with heart attacks, skipping mammograms and colonoscopies, etc.
+++++++++++++++++++++1
California doctors…more deaths from suicide than coronavirus since lockdown.
“What I have seen recently, I have never seen before,” Hansen said. “I have never seen so much intentional injury.”
Trauma nurse of 30 yrs.
What aims to be a safeguard is actually quite costly and its effects are hardly short term. The costs are both job loss/financial and from isolation.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/california-doctors-say-theyve-seen-more-deaths-from-suicide-than-coronavirus-since-lockdowns%3f_amp=true
I just read your linked article. It’s highly anecdotal: “a study in May suggested…” Until someone has actual numbers on suicide during quarantine, we might as well also point out that we don’t even know the true numbers for COVID-19 deaths. If someone passes away at home, without a COVID-19 test, those numbers aren’t counted.
Indeed there could be a dose of anecdotal, as you note. In the end, even the attribution of a suicide to the shutdown, won’t always be tallied absolutely/empirically. The same is true for connecting increased drug abuse, depression/psyche matters, increased crime, spousal abuse, etc.
A relevant matter is, all above are known to grow in such times and the article implies such growth—a stout growth at that—and we’re just about 3 months into the shut-down. Per my perspective, it’s early in the phase. People are itching to “go public,” but it’s a switch that maybe “on”, but there will be a social hesitancy for quite awhile and a financial struggle for even longer. No death is “ok.”
I meant to include per “article”:
https://www.aier.org/article/drugs-suicide-and-crime-empirical-estimates-of-the-human-toll-of-the-shut-down/
The article focuses on Walnut Creek, California, which is in Contra Costa County east of Oakland. The county was one of the first to lock down, which certainly did reduce their deaths from coronavirus. The confirmed number is only 37. As for suicides, they aren’t entirely a result of a local lockdown, since the county has substantially opened for business.
Click to access 84606e_3b98e78dc0e5463a90b2faa12aa97b75.pdf
Like the other 49 states, large swaths of California are open under social distancing guidelines. There is not a binary choice between being locked down entirely versus returning to the rules that applied last January. If people are willing to exercise reasonable care, we can find a profitable compromise. There is no excuse for turning common-sense public health measures like wearing a mask and not packing into parks and bars into some sort of political litmus test.
Your “tune” is a moving target. Now “profitable compromise” is part of the retort, but It was just a few weeks ago that those wanting to temper the shut-down were compared to the “lawless in Somalia“ and some other S-hole country…that I can’t remember because the reference was so absurd.
People are going to die on both ends…because of the virus directly and the because of the effect of the shutdown that is bringing isolation and profound economic distress. Neither of the latter are going to decrease anytime soon because the business cycle just doesn’t “spin up” on command (and the employment #’s and defaults are going to get worse) and because most people lean into isolating because of fear of the V.
My opinions change as the situation changes. I see that as a virtue, not a vice.
That said, I never argued against those who wanted to modify the lockdown rules. That is a matter of judgment on which reasonable people might differ. I did insist that decisions be based on actual facts, rather than on unfounded opinions. Even if I think the rules my state has implemented are dangerous, I don’t question society’s right to determine the rules that govern it.
What I did say is that people who are unwilling to obey the rules should be prosecuted like those who break any other law. If we abandon that principle, we have taken a giant step towards becoming a failed state like Somalia where those who are able can do as they like, regardless of the costs to their fellow citizens.
“My opinions change as the situation changes. I see that as a virtue, not a vice.”
NO!
Your opinions regarding President Trump NEVER CHANGE.
You don’t have a kind word or single word of praise for economic accomplishments since the Don made Presidential history beating the billionaire spending candidate and 90%+ media favorite.
Don’t insult our intelligence…😡
Sorry but MANY incorrect assumptions and lack of understanding of immunology. Your math is tainted by your fear.
(@Practicing Physician & @PC Apologist)
Again I must refer you to Isaac Asimov’s comments on the American tendency to reject expert advice as a form of elitism.
@TxUser aren’t you doing the exact thing you are claiming others are doing? hmmm…..
Daily!
Nuff said…
Also, there is more than one export opinion. What you are implying is that there is only one that matters…
“expert”
The main thrust of most countries’ lockdown response has been to suppress the spread as much and as quickly as possible in order not to overwhelm healthcare systems.
The death rate is as low as it is – in some countries – because people have been able to be treated urgently. Had the lockdown not occurred, and if a return to activity is not managed properly – that low death rate may not hold up as not enough people will be able to be tested and treated quickly enough.
Total speculation and propaganda, social distancing theorists are worse than flat-earthers and Holocaust-deniers combined. They’ve done more damage to American working people than the Nazis or Communists ever dreamed of. Depression, strokes, heart attacks, delayed cancer treatments, anxiety, fear, drug and alcohol abuse, suicides, millions of collective years in shortened life spans. The control freak bastards will pay dearly.
+++++++1
They scared everybody shitless. And it worked. Now we suffer and it’s not going to go back like 2019 for quite a long time. People are starting to get used to being without the hospitality businesses. I mean really, who wants to go out to eat and make believe all is well? The hospitality industry will fall like dominos. It’s already happening. Normal semi intelligent people stay home more or less. Why? Flip a coin, 50% chance of infection going out. Flip it again once infected. 50% chance your heading 6 feet under. So we stay home. For a long, long, long time while we watch those that shun social distancing die.
We’ve ALL been DUPED! The fear is BASELESS, and has been for almost 2 months. We did not know much in the beginning BUT we know far too much now. There is NO justification for ANY of the current practices, except for isolating the ultra-vulnerable.
Reality is 100,000 American deaths—so far—with around a million who required hospitalization. The CDC guess of the infection fatality rate featured in the headline for this thread is 0.26%, and that is lower than most estimates (as the article itself states).
As the article also states, only about 4% of the population of Los Angeles County, which has had 4200 deaths, shows antibodies. The county’s social distancing rules, and luck, have protected 96%, almost 10 million persons, from infection. Since LA was a hotspot, the immunity rate among the other 320 million Americans is likely lower.
If the country’s population dropped all its social distancing precautions, cases would resume rising exponentially until at least another 60% of the population had been infected. Do that math problem.
So many false assumptions…
First, social distancing is NOT and has never been a way to avoid deaths, only to slow down the spread. The only math that changes is time… The fact is that in spite of all the social distancing measures, the virus has still spread unabate, not much differently from places that did not practice social distancing.
So any “math” that does not account for this is flawed from the get-go.
Slowing down the spread prevents existing resources from being overwhelmed and allows time to acquire new resources. That obviously DID avoid deaths. It was not the fault of the experts advocating sound public health measures that the government did not take advantage of the time those measures bought them. “Flattening the curve” has saved lives and will continue to save lives unless we let the lunatics run the asylum.
“prevent[ing] existing resources from being overwhelmed and allow[ing] time to acquire new resources” and “Flattening the curve” was achieved LONG ago. The medical system capacity has been SO freed up that there is NO risk of it being overwhelmed at this point. So what is the continuing justification for the current measures?
I’ll give you a hint…none!
So having every ICU bed and most of the ED beds in parts of Alabama full of coronavirus patients isn’t a problem?
“So many false assumptions…”
Yes!
To each his own — but I would call them “false” Democrat opinions…
You have a math problem. A coin flip is 50%. If you’re outside of a nursing home and contract COVID-19, you have a 99.87% chance of survival. Most likely you’ll have what feels like the flu at the very worst or a cold or even no symptoms at all. Even if you’re inside a nursing home, you have a 99.74% chance of survival from COVID-19 which has been so blown out of all proportion by the media which treats it as if it is 100% fatal, the zombie apocalypse.
Some f–king people watch too many f–king movies. Try reality for a change.
Tell that to the healthy young people who have died. You know nothing Jon Snow.
I can’t tell them anything. They’re dead.
Since they’re now dead, they obviously weren’t so “healthy.”
If they were young, the odds are overwhelming that they had underlying, or self-inflicted, conditions (vaping, smoking, cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.).
“Yes I shot him, Officer. What’s the big deal? He would have died from something else eventually anyway.”
The problem is that many of the victims had preexisting conditions that were only discovered by autopsy, just as the person who gave them the virus was likely unaware that he was infectious.
Regardless, my point, as usual, stands as perfectly as it did before “Nope” interjected their laughably self-righteous inanity:
If you’re outside of a nursing home and contract COVID-19, you have a 99.87% chance of survival. Most likely you’ll have what feels like the flu at the very worst or a cold or even no symptoms at all. Even if you’re inside a nursing home, you have a 99.74% chance of survival from COVID-19 which has been so blown out of all proportion by the media which treats it as if it is 100% fatal, the zombie apocalypse.
Some f–king people watch too many f–king movies. Try reality for a change.
Ridiculous deflection, gee, what a surprise!…🤣
Remember the old days when the people here commented on Apple products… before it got taken over by such incredibly stupid people (if you can call them that..people I mean…stupid was a given) like First Then and GoeB? I would include Smayer97 but he isn;t even worth my time. THose insensitive people who don’t care about their fellow citizens dying, people who love a president that disrespects women and cheats on his pregnant wife, who accuses a person of murder and threatens to use his political position to stifle any negative comments (hmmm what other world leaders have done that in the past…with bad consequences)?
Could any of us have imagined this occuring 10 or 20 years ago? What has caused this lack of humanity, the lack of caring, the lack of empathy and the abundance of self love and lack of having amoral compass.
Guess maybe it is time to get 40 days and 40 nights of rain again…….
What does politics have to do with the science behind this pandemic? (Speaking of stupid…)
And I certainly have never diminished the caring for those affected. Just the opposite. Death is always a tragedy. But your chances of dying by most any other means, including crossing the street, is higher than dying from COVID. Get a grip!
BTW…I’m not even American! (reveals your prejudice)
Touch a nerve did I? Trump’s base is non-college educated white men. What college did you not go to?
wow… what ignorant prejudice you keep showing… you know nothing of people’s level of education (and you are not worth the time to inform you).
Do you think yourself more intelligent by making such outright ignorant statements? Because ad hominem attacks are just the highest form of sophisticated arguments, revealing your level of intelligence. I bow to your superiority __/¯(¨)¯__
“you know nothing of people’s level of education (and you are not worth the time to inform you)”
Heh, meaning you don’t have any post secondary education and probably barely made it out of high school.
@heh…another pleading out of ignorance.
P.S. I actually hold several degrees and diplomas but I do not want to confuse you with the facts.
“I actually hold several degrees and diplomas”
Uhhh yeah… sure you do sweetie.
At least you called me sweetie!
(Let me guess, you must be one of those fact-checkers..and you fact checked this, right? right!)
Do you actually read the crap you write?
nothing to see here folks…
If there wasn’t, why do you keep coming back here then silly!!!!
wow…this was about nothing to see here regarding YOUR comment…you are quick…
You keep proving my point shyte for brains.