11 ms·

Regarding an uncontrolled outbreak (we can't just quarantine everyone, everywhere without secondary effects from economic collapse getting more deadly than the

by usrusr 7y ago

Regarding an uncontrolled outbreak (we can't just quarantine everyone, everywhere without secondary effects from economic collapse getting more deadly than the disease itself), the number I find myself speculating about most is how many would be dead or permanently harmed in absence of intensive care? Because no health system in the world would have the capacity to put more than about one in thousand people in intensive care. Even Hubei is still below 0.2% total known infections, surely in large parts thanks to measures that would be impossible to scale globally.

jacquesm 7y ago
> Because no health system in the world would have the capacity to put more than about one in thousand people in intensive care. Try one in ten thousand. And that's in the most developed countries with the best healthcare.
- Retric 7y ago
  On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day. Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost. That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems. If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day. That's absolutely true, even in Wuhan the %age of infected people on the total population is relatively small, but much larger than the # of ICU beds that existed. And the virus had a long time to spread around there before any countermeasures were taken. Even so, ventilators and ICU beds are not normally all available either. > Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost. It would have been a lot more effective if they had done it sooner. > That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems. Yes, and I'm sure that at some level that's the right trade-off, I'm just not sure what that level is and whether or not we are already past it. > If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time. In Italy they went from 0 dead and a handful of cases to 7 dead and > 200 cases. Most of them are old people and people that were already ill. Historically the way we deal with epidemics is by developing medication. That takes time and in the meantime the damage could be substantial.
    - Retric 7y ago
      > Historically the way we deal with epidemics is by developing medication. Effective medication is a very recent thing. Variolation dates back to the 10th century and was moderately effective, but quarantine is thousands of years old. Avoiding cannibalism and thus prion diseases is also from antiquity, but that’s simply another type of avoidance.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      > It would have been a lot more effective if they had done it sooner. China startet radical measures after a rather low number of mystery lung issues. I really doubt that any other government would have taken decisive action much earlier. What would you expect, martial law whenever a doctor isn't quite sure about a diagnosis? The initial silencing of the first public reports is very unfortunate and puts the government rightfully in a very bad light, but I'm not sure that it had any influence on the speed of countermeasure implementation at all. I see that more as a case of one part of a huge organisation not knowing what the other is doing, not as a government-wide attempt at ignoring the problem. The authoritarian version of a PR department still sending out denials while the rest of the company is already working on a fix (and too busy to rein in the PR department/thought police)
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        > China startet radical measures after a rather low number of mystery lung issues. After SARS a month of inaction is too long.
  - mcphage 7y ago
    > If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time. Yes, but we’re still often left with millions or tens of millions dead.

by usrusr 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago

> Because no health system in the world would have the capacity to put more than about one in thousand people in intensive care. Try one in ten thousand. And that's in the most developed countries with the best healthcare.

Retric 7y ago
On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day. Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost. That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems. If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day. That's absolutely true, even in Wuhan the %age of infected people on the total population is relatively small, but much larger than the # of ICU beds that existed. And the virus had a long time to spread around there before any countermeasures were taken. Even so, ventilators and ICU beds are not normally all available either. > Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost. It would have been a lot more effective if they had done it sooner. > That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems. Yes, and I'm sure that at some level that's the right trade-off, I'm just not sure what that level is and whether or not we are already past it. > If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time. In Italy they went from 0 dead and a handful of cases to 7 dead and > 200 cases. Most of them are old people and people that were already ill. Historically the way we deal with epidemics is by developing medication. That takes time and in the meantime the damage could be substantial.
  - Retric 7y ago
    > Historically the way we deal with epidemics is by developing medication. Effective medication is a very recent thing. Variolation dates back to the 10th century and was moderately effective, but quarantine is thousands of years old. Avoiding cannibalism and thus prion diseases is also from antiquity, but that’s simply another type of avoidance.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    > It would have been a lot more effective if they had done it sooner. China startet radical measures after a rather low number of mystery lung issues. I really doubt that any other government would have taken decisive action much earlier. What would you expect, martial law whenever a doctor isn't quite sure about a diagnosis? The initial silencing of the first public reports is very unfortunate and puts the government rightfully in a very bad light, but I'm not sure that it had any influence on the speed of countermeasure implementation at all. I see that more as a case of one part of a huge organisation not knowing what the other is doing, not as a government-wide attempt at ignoring the problem. The authoritarian version of a PR department still sending out denials while the rest of the company is already working on a fix (and too busy to rein in the PR department/thought police)
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      > China startet radical measures after a rather low number of mystery lung issues. After SARS a month of inaction is too long.
- mcphage 7y ago
  > If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time. Yes, but we’re still often left with millions or tens of millions dead.