COVID-19: A bloody battle or a long war?

[antaeus]

What this means is that Germany has a lot of leeway and can think about methods of exposing more people.

Lets just get this out of the way. Young people, healthy people do die of Covid-19. Any solution that involves exposing more people will result in more death. So when you advocate that, you are advocating allowing people to die. Don't euphemism your way around that.

What you're arguing for, is an acceptable level of death. A driving analogy is not the same. Some people must drive - it is a normal part of society. And it's highly unlikely that you'll unknowingly pass on a car accident to 400 people over the course of a month of being out in public. Nobody has to catch Coronavirus if they aren't exposed to it. But those who are exposed without knowing, will give it to other people.

I'll leave you to debate the reasoning for your point of view with the families and loved ones of those who die as a part of your acceptable level of death.

[Diamat]

Huh? The entire purpose of flattening the curve is to get people exposed more gradually and in a safe way. The goal has never been to stop exposing people. The main concern has been that the medical system gets overwhelmed, resulting in needless deaths. No one is advocating to have more people killed. If the goal really was to stop the spread entirely, then we would have to hunker down and shut down the economy for at least one more year. That's unrealistic and most scientists and governments agree. We must flatten the curve, not eliminate it.

[antaeus]

That's not entirely true.

Flattening the curve is intended to allow more effective saving of lives by limiting the spread to keep hospitals viable and buying time until an effective treatment becomes available. The intent isn't to allow more people to catch the disease and it isn't to give herd immunity. To reach the required 50 to 60% exposure required for herd immunity you have to expose your citizens to a minimum 1% death rate in that 50 or so % of your population. No leader would ever advocate that. That is millions of deaths. Thus the UK changed tack when they were confronted with a potential several hundred thousand deaths over the next few months of managed exposure.

So as I said, a policy of deliberate exposure is effectively seeking an acceptable death toll. If that's your preferred solution, go for it. I'll be staying at home thanks.

[Diamat]

A seasonal flu-like death rate is acceptable (not 1 percent, which is too high). That's in part what we are trying to achieve. After all, we are not trying to stop the seasonal flu simply because it causes people to die. We could try to do that in order to save some lives, but we don't do that, now do we, even though it would certainly save some lives in the short term. And I didn't say deliberate exposure. I said safe and gradual exposure.

[antaeus]

Oh I'm sorry, I mistook you.

I didn't realise you were just advocating safely exposing your population to a new disease that has a death rate of more than 10 times the flu.

Like I said. Go ahead. Sell that death toll. I'm sure you've got a good marketing team on standby.

[Diamat]

What I'm talking about is gonna happen soon, whether you like it or not. We will gradually re-open the economy, now that we know that we can handle the situation. Austria has already announced this. I guess you'll have to stay indoors for another year.

[PointOfViewGun]

You're misrepresenting what I have said. I said the main problem are old people AND people of ill health. They would be the chief cause of an overwhelming of the medical system. It is ridiculous to say that 20% of young people with the virus would be hospitalized. You have no solid evidence to suggest something like this. The aggregate data currently available does not suggest such a high rate, particularly not when talking about necessary hospitalizations that require an ICU/ventilator. Let's take the data from the wiki page I showed you earlier. Germany has 29 ICU beds per 100,000 people. In the US, where the situation is much worse, the hospitalization rate is 4.6 per 100,000. This is based on CDC data. What this means is that Germany has a lot of leeway and can think about methods of exposing more people.

My approach does not kill people. It is merely asking questions and suggesting a more sensible course. We don't stop people from driving just because they might potentially die. We take calculated risks that work for the betterment of society. The more people we can SAFELY expose to the virus, the better. The longer it takes us to expose people and create herd immunity, the longer vulnerable people will be in danger, and the longer the economic woes of many in society.

Whats the point of trying to downplay my data that has 2449 cases because of how small it was then use data yourself that has 1482 cases?

By the way, when that 4.6 figure was created USA had about 120 thousand cases. 4.6 cases make about 15042 hospitalized cases of 120 thousand cases. That's a rate of 12.5%. Even if Germany is twice as good compared to USA that means millions of people will be hospitalized. No, even Germany doesn't have that capacity.

[Diamat]

Because you asked for data. My poor data against your poor data.

[Gaidin]

As for the 100,000 cases, that was just an example I used to demonstrate Germany's capabilities. Eventually people will have to get exposed to the virus, especially young people, to create a type of herd immunity that would protect vulnerable people. Germany can afford to safely expose more people. That is my point.

Your way of saying 'Eventually people will have to get exposed to the virus' is a bit haphazard and annoying. We do this daily and yearly in society. We call these vaccinations. With weakened forms of diseases and yearly flu shots. If this is a one off of this type of disease, we will no doubt have a vaccine for it, just like we do measles. If it is not just a one off, but more like the flu, there will probably be a yearly CV shot alongside the flu shot. But we will not just 'expose' people to the disease.

Get your straight.

[Diamat]

I'm sorry, but we can't just shut down the economy until a vaccine is ready in 2021. Young people will have to work, get exposed, and old and vulnerable people will have to stay isolated. This should reduce the death rate to seasonal flu-like death rate.

[mishkin]

As far as I know, no government has spoken of "shut down the economy until a vaccine is ready". I suppose that when it is considered that the public health can control at least minimally the cases that occur, sompanies will gradually open up.

[PointOfViewGun]

I'm sorry, but we can't just shut down the economy until a vaccine is ready in 2021. Young people will have to work, get exposed, and old and vulnerable people will have to stay isolated. This should reduce the death rate to seasonal flu-like death rate.

You're still killing people that would not die if people just stay put for 2 or 3 weeks.

[antaeus]

You're still killing people that would not die if people just stay put for 2 or 3 weeks.

Exactly.

There is no "exposure to gain herd immunity" that does not expose your society to high death rates. For example. If herd immunity requires 60% exposure, and there are 320 odd million Americans. If you lock up the elderly then you're still going to see possibly a 0.5% death rate amongst the rest. That's a million deaths to gain open and free economic activity. A million deaths. If you open up now, those deaths happen before August and you have more because of a swamped health system. If you open slowly, they happen over the year or more, but they still happen.

And I'm sorry, but as I said earlier... you're going to need a hell of a marketing team to sell that one. And a hell of a psychiatrist to take the million person guilt off your shoulders if you're recommending it.

As far as I can tell, the only ethical way out of this, is to suppress hard now, then maintain a level of suppressive social isolation that allows for some creative business solutions to occur and maintain that status indefinitely. That is where my country is at. I can go order takeout, I can go buy a coffee - support local small business - but I can't sit in that restaurant or cafe, and I expect to be working from home for the foreseeable future. Because I can't live with the acceptance of a level of death from a new disease to allow normal economic activity.

It shocks me to know that we're probably going to see exactly what it takes to secure herd immunity in a young population as this disease takes hold in places without the privilege of social isolation.

[Morifea]

@antaeus: Just have a Cult leader as President, his followers will swallow that pill with ease.

[Heathen Hammer]

You're still killing people that would not die if people just stay put for 2 or 3 weeks.

The current mode can go on for so long before supply chains buckle and budget gravy train of financial relief for those out of work starts running out. And once that happens, all the "social distancing" will go out the window when there are food riots.
Only solution I see is:
- Quarantine elderly and people with underlying health conditions until vaccines are out
- If they share household with people who are not in a risk group, create incentives for the latter to make it easy for them to move out and go on with their lives (it is fair to have banks financially cover that in return for this year's earlier bailouts)
- Throw all resources in developing/ testing drugs that help treat it in the mean time.

That will put the economy back on track and allow for fastest route to a long-term solution.

[PointOfViewGun]

The following are what's reported of total hospitalization rate in New York:



It's impossible to know how many actual cases out there as many that carry the virus but don't feel sick go unchecked. However, the number of hospitalizations give a much closer picture of the complete picture. New York went into near total lock down on March 22nd. About 12 days later, which is close to what is widely reported as the incubation period of the virus, the hospitalization cases starts to go down drastically.

[Copperknickers II]

The following are what's reported of total hospitalization rate in New York:



It's impossible to know how many actual cases out there as many that carry the virus but don't feel sick go unchecked. However, the number of hospitalizations give a much closer picture of the complete picture. New York went into near total lock down on March 22nd. About 12 days later, which is close to what is widely reported as the incubation period of the virus, the hospitalization cases starts to go down drastically.

Sadly I'm not sure that's necessarily as encouraging as it might appear. On April 2nd (7 days ago) Cuomo said they were 6 days away from maxing out ventilator capacity. Maybe they just don't have the space left to admit new patients.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/n...rk-update.html

[Gaidin]

Ventilator capacity and hospital capacity are two different numbers. Ventilator capacity max forces a hospital to perform triage. Admittedly, so does Hospital capacity being at max. But it's a different kind of triage. A much broader form of triage. One might find New York's full CV-19 count more relevant to this question.

[PointOfViewGun]

Sadly I'm not sure that's necessarily as encouraging as it might appear. On April 2nd (7 days ago) Cuomo said they were 6 days away from maxing out ventilator capacity. Maybe they just don't have the space left to admit new patients.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/n...rk-update.html

On April 2nd, Cuomo was speaking from a standpoint that expect a thousand patients a day at least. If what you said had merit then the hospitalization numbers continue to be at at least a thousand for 6 more days. It's not.

[antaeus]

On April 2nd, Cuomo was speaking from a standpoint that expect a thousand patients a day at least. If what you said had merit then the hospitalization numbers continue to be at at least a thousand for 6 more days. It's not.

Unfortunately, because it takes up to 3 weeks for someone to require hospitalisation, those rates, including deaths, are delayed even further.