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The death rates are only low because people are able to get hospital care. ~20% of cases require hospitalisation and a large fraction of them will die without h

The death rates are only low because people are able to get hospital care. ~20% of cases require hospitalisation and a large fraction of them will die without hospital care. At the current growth rate (of confirmed cases) in the US, in about two weeks there will be more cases in the US requiring hospitalisation than there are ICU ventilators in the entire United States. We need to get that growth rate down, or a decent chunk of the people who are hospitalised and unable to get a ventilator will die.

glofish 7y ago
I think that initially there is a strong selection for discovering cases that do require hospital care. We'll see what the future holds. In China the CFR (crude fatality rate) started at 17% and dropped to 0.7%, check figure 4 here: https://who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf https://who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-j... I the end it might be that Chinese response will be the most effective model to how to best respond to an epidemic.
- doubleunplussed 7y ago
  I'm starting to think that these 'we don't know the denominator' arguments are somewhat irrelevant. E.g. it might be that 20% of cases require hospitalisation. Or it might be that there are ten times as many cases as we thought, and only 2% require hospitalisation. But the number of people in hospital remains the same in either case, as do predictions for the future strain on the healthcare system (up until the disease infects a significant fraction of the total population).
  - glofish 7y ago
    Society responds very differently to a 20% hospitalization rate versus a 2% one. Emotion is a driving factor. The problem is panic, which will overwhelm hospitals sooner than the actual hospitalization rate. Thus a 2% rate is much much better to mitigate panic You are more likely to die in the stampede triggered by a fire in a crowded cinema, than the fire itself.
    - doubleunplussed 7y ago
      I don't think you're making much sense here. If 20% of a small number and 2% of a bigger number are the same number of people in hospital, the hospitals will be in the same situation. What is emotion driving? People showing up in emergency? These people will be triaged, and will not take up the most limited resource - ventilators - unless they need them. I don't think 'panic' will overwhelm anything other than the triage nurses. This is not what you should be worried about.
      - glofish 7y ago
        To me the explanation is straigthfoward Take any disease that kills 99% of those that get it. You are going to be a lot more scared of it, than one that kills 0.1% of infected targets. It does not matter if the overall death number is the same. People will act far less logically in the first case than the second. This is not about "math" it is about emotional responses and how that affects everything. As I said, you are more likely to be trampled to death than die in the fire that caused the panic.
        doubleunplussed 7y ago
        But how strained the hospitals get has little to do with how panicked people are. I don't care about what tugs on people's fears the most. I'm not afraid of their fear, I'm afraid of hospitals being overrun by actual cases.

glofish 7y ago

I think that initially there is a strong selection for discovering cases that do require hospital care. We'll see what the future holds. In China the CFR (crude fatality rate) started at 17% and dropped to 0.7%, check figure 4 here: https://who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf https://who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-j... I the end it might be that Chinese response will be the most effective model to how to best respond to an epidemic.

doubleunplussed 7y ago
I'm starting to think that these 'we don't know the denominator' arguments are somewhat irrelevant. E.g. it might be that 20% of cases require hospitalisation. Or it might be that there are ten times as many cases as we thought, and only 2% require hospitalisation. But the number of people in hospital remains the same in either case, as do predictions for the future strain on the healthcare system (up until the disease infects a significant fraction of the total population).
- glofish 7y ago
  Society responds very differently to a 20% hospitalization rate versus a 2% one. Emotion is a driving factor. The problem is panic, which will overwhelm hospitals sooner than the actual hospitalization rate. Thus a 2% rate is much much better to mitigate panic You are more likely to die in the stampede triggered by a fire in a crowded cinema, than the fire itself.
  - doubleunplussed 7y ago
    I don't think you're making much sense here. If 20% of a small number and 2% of a bigger number are the same number of people in hospital, the hospitals will be in the same situation. What is emotion driving? People showing up in emergency? These people will be triaged, and will not take up the most limited resource - ventilators - unless they need them. I don't think 'panic' will overwhelm anything other than the triage nurses. This is not what you should be worried about.
    - glofish 7y ago
      To me the explanation is straigthfoward Take any disease that kills 99% of those that get it. You are going to be a lot more scared of it, than one that kills 0.1% of infected targets. It does not matter if the overall death number is the same. People will act far less logically in the first case than the second. This is not about "math" it is about emotional responses and how that affects everything. As I said, you are more likely to be trampled to death than die in the fire that caused the panic.
      - doubleunplussed 7y ago
        But how strained the hospitals get has little to do with how panicked people are. I don't care about what tugs on people's fears the most. I'm not afraid of their fear, I'm afraid of hospitals being overrun by actual cases.