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senordevnyc 7y ago
Has anyone done the math on how long a flattened curve stretches out if you flatten it enough to not overwhelm the medical system? So for example, if we have 100,000 ICU beds in the US and we somehow make them all available for COVID-19 patients (unlikely), how flat do we need to make the curve to not go above 100k ICU patients, and how long will that flattened curve last? A month? Six months? Two years? Assuming 70% of the adult population gets it, that's roughly 140 million infected. Assuming 5% need ICU beds, that's 7 million ICU patients. And assuming the average ICU stay is 2 weeks, we'd need to therefore spread our ICU patients over 140 weeks, or almost three years. Is that how long we can expect social distancing to last if things go perfectly?
- nicoburns 7y ago
  The UK only has ~4000 ICU beds, and these are mostly already full. We've got no chance.
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    Yeah, just to be clear, I think there's no chance in the US either. I just saw something that said we actually only have 45k beds, and they're mostly already full anyway. Plus there's no chance we're going to be able to keep this clamped down for months. We'll be overwhelmed in weeks.
- empiricus 7y ago
  When we saw the Chinese building hospitals in a couple of days, maybe we should have started building all around the world, slower. We had the time... Also build respirators, train ppl. Even now is better than later...
deleted 7y ago
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lgeek 7y ago
> It's dawning on me that what China and South Korea are achieving, although impressive, leads to a lengthy stalemate that makes life impossible for millions of people. It's not a stalemate, they're still getting new cases at a pace that allows their medical system to cope. > In the absence of a vaccine It's a pretty safe bet one will become available pretty soon. Meanwhile, more is being learned about how to handle infections and improve the outcome. > the aim is to flatten the curve but still get the whole thing over and done with in about 6 months There are 4000 ICU beds in the country in total, most of which will be in use due to other kind of cases at any one time. [1] But let's assume you can make that number available for coronavirus patients for 6 months. So you have 4k*26 = 104k ICU bed-weeks available. There's been talk of 60% of the population getting infected to build up herd immunity [2] (somehow ignoring that there seems to be a nontrivial reinfection rate [3]), so almost 40 million people. It's not very clear how many infected people end up needing intensive care. In Italy, it was 10% of the people who tested positive [4]. But only the worst cases get tested once the epidemic is widespread, so let's say maybe 0.5% of the infected people need ICU (wild guess here since no country with a large number of infections is testing people with mild symptoms, but I think I'm being conservative). 0.5% of 40 million is 200k patients. If each of them need an ICU bed for 2 weeks, that's 400k bed-weeks. Basically we're talking about most of the 6 months period of the NHS being overwhelmed and coronavirus having a high mortality rate. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51714498 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51714498 [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-uk-nhs-outbreak-pandemic-government-a9399101.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-i... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-explainer/explainer-coronavirus-reappears-in-discharged-patients-raising-questions-in-containment-fight-idUSKCN20M124 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-... [4] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-ans...
- codeulike 7y ago
  Yes. But if instead stretch the epidemic out over two years with very extreme social distancing measures (if that is even possible), what would the human cost be in terms of food shortages, loneliness, fear, suicide, depression, economic depression, people with other health conditions not being able to get treated etc. It's not straightforward.

(deleted)

Has anyone done the math on how long a flattened curve stretches out if you flatten it enough to not overwhelm the medical system? So for example, if we have 100,000 ICU beds in the US and we somehow make them all available for COVID-19 patients (unlikely), how flat do we need to make the curve to not go above 100k ICU patients, and how long will that flattened curve last? A month? Six months? Two years? Assuming 70% of the adult population gets it, that's roughly 140 million infected. Assuming 5% need ICU beds, that's 7 million ICU patients. And assuming the average ICU stay is 2 weeks, we'd need to therefore spread our ICU patients over 140 weeks, or almost three years. Is that how long we can expect social distancing to last if things go perfectly?

nicoburns 7y ago
The UK only has ~4000 ICU beds, and these are mostly already full. We've got no chance.
- senordevnyc 7y ago
  Yeah, just to be clear, I think there's no chance in the US either. I just saw something that said we actually only have 45k beds, and they're mostly already full anyway. Plus there's no chance we're going to be able to keep this clamped down for months. We'll be overwhelmed in weeks.
empiricus 7y ago
When we saw the Chinese building hospitals in a couple of days, maybe we should have started building all around the world, slower. We had the time... Also build respirators, train ppl. Even now is better than later...

deleted 7y ago

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lgeek 7y ago

> It's dawning on me that what China and South Korea are achieving, although impressive, leads to a lengthy stalemate that makes life impossible for millions of people. It's not a stalemate, they're still getting new cases at a pace that allows their medical system to cope. > In the absence of a vaccine It's a pretty safe bet one will become available pretty soon. Meanwhile, more is being learned about how to handle infections and improve the outcome. > the aim is to flatten the curve but still get the whole thing over and done with in about 6 months There are 4000 ICU beds in the country in total, most of which will be in use due to other kind of cases at any one time. [1] But let's assume you can make that number available for coronavirus patients for 6 months. So you have 4k*26 = 104k ICU bed-weeks available. There's been talk of 60% of the population getting infected to build up herd immunity [2] (somehow ignoring that there seems to be a nontrivial reinfection rate [3]), so almost 40 million people. It's not very clear how many infected people end up needing intensive care. In Italy, it was 10% of the people who tested positive [4]. But only the worst cases get tested once the epidemic is widespread, so let's say maybe 0.5% of the infected people need ICU (wild guess here since no country with a large number of infections is testing people with mild symptoms, but I think I'm being conservative). 0.5% of 40 million is 200k patients. If each of them need an ICU bed for 2 weeks, that's 400k bed-weeks. Basically we're talking about most of the 6 months period of the NHS being overwhelmed and coronavirus having a high mortality rate. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51714498 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51714498 [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-uk-nhs-outbreak-pandemic-government-a9399101.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-i... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-explainer/explainer-coronavirus-reappears-in-discharged-patients-raising-questions-in-containment-fight-idUSKCN20M124 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-... [4] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-ans...

codeulike 7y ago
Yes. But if instead stretch the epidemic out over two years with very extreme social distancing measures (if that is even possible), what would the human cost be in terms of food shortages, loneliness, fear, suicide, depression, economic depression, people with other health conditions not being able to get treated etc. It's not straightforward.