6 ms·

10% of Covid patients in intensive care unit

ctoth 7y ago
Really really hope people are paying attention to this. Suspect we're just sleepwalking into a disaster.
- smt88 7y ago
  Literally tens of thousands of people (if not hundreds of thousands) are working on this outbreak. My friend works for the CDC in Atlanta, and the taskforce in that city alone is 1,500 people. They work 75 hrs/wk exclusively on this outbreak. The idea that the many thousands of people with jobs and doctorates in public health, epidemiology, and medicine would be sleepwalking while you (and I assume some other people) are more aware of the impending disaster is ludicrous.
  - josh_fyi 7y ago
    The problem is not the professionals, who work hard, but those in control who may have other motives like short-term stock market performance.
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    Then why are we 8 weeks into this and the US has tested approximately no one, while other countries are testing thousands per day? Wtf are these 1500 people doing for 75 hours per week?
    - smt88 7y ago
      Each test kit has a limited number of uses[. The first batch of thousands of test kits had a flaw and couldn't be used[1]. With a limited number of kits, they had to limit testing to high-risk people. As I've written on HN before, a great deal of the problem is that the current administration appoints political donors and anti-government activists to important roles in agencies handling science and medicine. These are mid-level people whose names almost never end up in news. So you have incompetent decision makers appointed throughout the organization, funding cuts, discouragement of civil service at all (through things like killing debt forgiveness and stagnating wages), and an administration that publicly denies the problem is even serious because it's afraid of the stock market tanking. Add to that that the State Dept has been gutted and has many hundreds of open positions that the administration refuses to fill, and you have more disasters like allowing likely-infected Americans to return to the US without testing or quarantine. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testin...
      - senordevnyc 7y ago
        Oh, i'm 100% on board with the fact that it's not the experts' fault. But it's also not at all fair to say "Thousands of people are working on this, so we can't be sleepwalking!" and that's what I was responding to. Thousands of people might be working on this, but if their work is being ignored or undermined, they might as well not be.
  - viggity 7y ago
    I don't think the CDC is sleepwalking. I think the american public "iT's JuSt ThE fLu" is sleepwalking.
ctoth 7y ago
It's funny how the same heuristics I have developed around the growth of artificial intelligence are useful here. Spotting long term indicators trending in a bad direction. Having the gumption to examine a repellent conclusion, even though my mind wants to shy away from it. Ignoring ridicule and trusting numbers over social cues. Not that it's done me any good.
justinsaccount 7y ago
10% of all positive cases or 10% of the people who already are seeking advanced medical care? Their wording is "10% of all positive patients."
yumraj 7y ago
I really wish that China had not filtered/hidden the data related to Covid-19 for its population. That would have really helped the rest of the World prepare better. Right now the rest of the world is just grappling with if the mortality is 3.4% or is it higher or lower. How many, across gender and age groups and so on, end up in ICU vs have milder symptoms, and so on..
- wetpaws 7y ago
  The world had time since November but decided to ignore the problem.
  - ethanwillis 7y ago
    This is a blatant lie. In November China was busy persecuting doctors and censoring social media.
- wrmsr 7y ago
  It's not China's fault that the US isn't even testing its own healthcare workers displaying symptoms.
- erentz 7y ago
  You can possibly try to blame China for hiding things up until mid January. But absolutely after that you can’t. At that point the entire world had more than good enough data to see how serious this was and that it was going to become a pandemic. Yet even still now the response in the western world is totally underwhelming for the seriousness of the situation. I’m in Seattle which is heading right towards becoming America’s Wuhan and they still aren’t even cancelling all events or closing all schools and colleges.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    I wonder if the economic models of delayed action predict better economic outcomes vs cancelling all events and closing schools early? I imagine there’s likely to be commissions probing bureaucratic response, and some scapegoating.
ilaksh 7y ago
The problem I am having is that there is wildly contradictory information coming out. Some numbers that make it sound only a little bit more dangerous than flu, and then something like this that says 10% of positive cases need respirators. I think until we can be very sure that is not true, we should take this much more seriously. Seems like they are not interested in testing people in the US if they can find any excuse. I hope the people making that decision will review this information.
- drivebycomment 7y ago
  I don't trust the numbers from Italy and China - Italy because they seem to have lost the control completely and there seems to be no proper testing of significant population or tracking of the infected patients, and China because...China. So far, it seems Korea has the best data over the situation, and is likely the most applicable for countries with proper public health and medical systems. Per Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare - http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/viewer/skin/doc.html?fn=1583372501478_20200305104145.pdf&rs=/upload/viewer/result/202003/ http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/viewer/skin/doc.html?fn=158337... As of today, 150K people tested, 5766 infected, 35 death, 0.6% fatality rate. Their age distribution looks interesting: 0-30: ~2k infected, and no death. 30-50: ~1.5K infected, 2 death (0.1%) 50-59: 1127 infected, 5 death (0.4%) 60-69: 699 infected, 8 death (1.1%) 70-79: 288 infected, 13 death (4.5%) 80+: 127 infected, 7 death (5.6%) Their number of infected graph is showing some sign of deceleration - the growth rate seems to be leveling off or slowing down slightly.
  - eric-hu 7y ago
    I think Italy is particularly worth paying attention to as a bad case approximation of what can happen in the US. About a week ago, Korea had tested 90k people while the US had 400 tests available and fewer tested.
    - dpau 7y ago
      Besides lack of testing, the US could turn out even worse than Italy given that many lack insurance and/or cannot afford to call in sick.
anonuser123456 7y ago
Worth pointing out that that the average age in Italy is 46 vs 37 in China. Given that old age is well known to increase mortality and morbidity, we should expect worse outcomes in Italy.
- gnur 7y ago
  Life expectancy between Italy and China differs by about 7 years in Italy's favor, so I guess it's not that big of a difference.
  - kid_atticus 7y ago
    True, but the age distribution skews older in Italy. Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italypop.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italypop.svg China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_of_China_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_of_Chi...
  - klmadfejno 7y ago
    The fact that Italy has an older population but a longer life expectancy does not mean the risk of disease to the elderly is any less for Italians. That observation would only make sense if life expectancy were # of years from right now, rather than # of years at death.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Really really hope people are paying attention to this. Suspect we're just sleepwalking into a disaster.

smt88 7y ago
Literally tens of thousands of people (if not hundreds of thousands) are working on this outbreak. My friend works for the CDC in Atlanta, and the taskforce in that city alone is 1,500 people. They work 75 hrs/wk exclusively on this outbreak. The idea that the many thousands of people with jobs and doctorates in public health, epidemiology, and medicine would be sleepwalking while you (and I assume some other people) are more aware of the impending disaster is ludicrous.
- josh_fyi 7y ago
  The problem is not the professionals, who work hard, but those in control who may have other motives like short-term stock market performance.
- senordevnyc 7y ago
  Then why are we 8 weeks into this and the US has tested approximately no one, while other countries are testing thousands per day? Wtf are these 1500 people doing for 75 hours per week?
  - smt88 7y ago
    Each test kit has a limited number of uses[. The first batch of thousands of test kits had a flaw and couldn't be used[1]. With a limited number of kits, they had to limit testing to high-risk people. As I've written on HN before, a great deal of the problem is that the current administration appoints political donors and anti-government activists to important roles in agencies handling science and medicine. These are mid-level people whose names almost never end up in news. So you have incompetent decision makers appointed throughout the organization, funding cuts, discouragement of civil service at all (through things like killing debt forgiveness and stagnating wages), and an administration that publicly denies the problem is even serious because it's afraid of the stock market tanking. Add to that that the State Dept has been gutted and has many hundreds of open positions that the administration refuses to fill, and you have more disasters like allowing likely-infected Americans to return to the US without testing or quarantine. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testin...
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      Oh, i'm 100% on board with the fact that it's not the experts' fault. But it's also not at all fair to say "Thousands of people are working on this, so we can't be sleepwalking!" and that's what I was responding to. Thousands of people might be working on this, but if their work is being ignored or undermined, they might as well not be.
- viggity 7y ago
  I don't think the CDC is sleepwalking. I think the american public "iT's JuSt ThE fLu" is sleepwalking.

It's funny how the same heuristics I have developed around the growth of artificial intelligence are useful here. Spotting long term indicators trending in a bad direction. Having the gumption to examine a repellent conclusion, even though my mind wants to shy away from it. Ignoring ridicule and trusting numbers over social cues. Not that it's done me any good.

justinsaccount 7y ago

10% of all positive cases or 10% of the people who already are seeking advanced medical care? Their wording is "10% of all positive patients."

yumraj 7y ago

I really wish that China had not filtered/hidden the data related to Covid-19 for its population. That would have really helped the rest of the World prepare better. Right now the rest of the world is just grappling with if the mortality is 3.4% or is it higher or lower. How many, across gender and age groups and so on, end up in ICU vs have milder symptoms, and so on..

wetpaws 7y ago
The world had time since November but decided to ignore the problem.
- ethanwillis 7y ago
  This is a blatant lie. In November China was busy persecuting doctors and censoring social media.
wrmsr 7y ago
It's not China's fault that the US isn't even testing its own healthcare workers displaying symptoms.
erentz 7y ago
You can possibly try to blame China for hiding things up until mid January. But absolutely after that you can’t. At that point the entire world had more than good enough data to see how serious this was and that it was going to become a pandemic. Yet even still now the response in the western world is totally underwhelming for the seriousness of the situation. I’m in Seattle which is heading right towards becoming America’s Wuhan and they still aren’t even cancelling all events or closing all schools and colleges.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  I wonder if the economic models of delayed action predict better economic outcomes vs cancelling all events and closing schools early? I imagine there’s likely to be commissions probing bureaucratic response, and some scapegoating.

ilaksh 7y ago

The problem I am having is that there is wildly contradictory information coming out. Some numbers that make it sound only a little bit more dangerous than flu, and then something like this that says 10% of positive cases need respirators. I think until we can be very sure that is not true, we should take this much more seriously. Seems like they are not interested in testing people in the US if they can find any excuse. I hope the people making that decision will review this information.

drivebycomment 7y ago
I don't trust the numbers from Italy and China - Italy because they seem to have lost the control completely and there seems to be no proper testing of significant population or tracking of the infected patients, and China because...China. So far, it seems Korea has the best data over the situation, and is likely the most applicable for countries with proper public health and medical systems. Per Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare - http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/viewer/skin/doc.html?fn=1583372501478_20200305104145.pdf&rs=/upload/viewer/result/202003/ http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/viewer/skin/doc.html?fn=158337... As of today, 150K people tested, 5766 infected, 35 death, 0.6% fatality rate. Their age distribution looks interesting: 0-30: ~2k infected, and no death. 30-50: ~1.5K infected, 2 death (0.1%) 50-59: 1127 infected, 5 death (0.4%) 60-69: 699 infected, 8 death (1.1%) 70-79: 288 infected, 13 death (4.5%) 80+: 127 infected, 7 death (5.6%) Their number of infected graph is showing some sign of deceleration - the growth rate seems to be leveling off or slowing down slightly.
- eric-hu 7y ago
  I think Italy is particularly worth paying attention to as a bad case approximation of what can happen in the US. About a week ago, Korea had tested 90k people while the US had 400 tests available and fewer tested.
  - dpau 7y ago
    Besides lack of testing, the US could turn out even worse than Italy given that many lack insurance and/or cannot afford to call in sick.

anonuser123456 7y ago

Worth pointing out that that the average age in Italy is 46 vs 37 in China. Given that old age is well known to increase mortality and morbidity, we should expect worse outcomes in Italy.

gnur 7y ago
Life expectancy between Italy and China differs by about 7 years in Italy's favor, so I guess it's not that big of a difference.
- kid_atticus 7y ago
  True, but the age distribution skews older in Italy. Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italypop.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italypop.svg China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_of_China_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_of_Chi...
- klmadfejno 7y ago
  The fact that Italy has an older population but a longer life expectancy does not mean the risk of disease to the elderly is any less for Italians. That observation would only make sense if life expectancy were # of years from right now, rather than # of years at death.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]