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If coronavirus has already hit America then that is a huge vote of confidence for the American medical system, which, in this hypothetical, has managed to deal

If coronavirus has already hit America then that is a huge vote of confidence for the American medical system, which, in this hypothetical, has managed to deal with a major pneumonia pandemic without so much as calling in extra nursing shifts. That would suggest that America's medical system is ahead of Italy, which is suffering heavily due to running out of hospital space.

taeric 7y ago
Not necessarily. My contention is that in places with many severe cases, there are also tons of mild cases. In particular, I see no reason to think the young population is not getting it. Toddlers and pre teens. Especially in areas with higher family residence. So, my hypothesis centers around trying to give an explanation for why that population isn't impacted by severe cases. Going off how bad it hit me, if that is what hit me, best I have is lung health. And I don't have unhealthy lungs, all told. I do, however, have a distant history of asthma, and I find it plausible it did damage my lungs long ago. To flip it some. They say even if you survive, you may have lasting lung scarring. What if that preceded the covid?
- tathougies 7y ago
  > To flip it some. They say even if you survive, you may have lasting lung scarring. What if that preceded the covid? That doesn't make sense. Covid follows the same exponential curve in all countries. If the US has a bunch of latent infections, but no huge surge in pneumonia, then that would imply there is something special about Americans that keep them from developing the worst symptoms, or something special about American old people that, despite contact with the young silent carriers, they do not develop the disease. There is no reason to believe either of those are true. They say we are a week or so behind Italy. Italy is experiencing hospital overruns. If the week-behind estimate (based on actual numbers) is overly conservative, then we would have expected to see hospital overruns in the United States from old people with pneumonia. However, we don't have that. Thus, if the week-behind estimate is overly conservative, we are certainly not at the same point as Italy or ahead of Italy, so we can say that we are anywhere from 1 week to 1 day behind Italy which is still a pretty good bound.
  - taeric 7y ago
    That is exactly what I'm asserting. That places not having a surge in severe cases are different than the places that have had a surge. That is literally my hypothesis. The week behind curve on Italy is one to watch. My assertion is that we have had infections hitting here for at least a month. Probably longer. If we don't get the same severe case spike in a week, will everyone just keep upping their models? Because that is what it looks like people are doing.
TMWNN 7y ago
>That would suggest that America's medical system is ahead of Italy, which is suffering heavily due to running out of hospital space. The US has three times as many ICU beds per capita as Italy. https://web.archive.org/web/20200313034908/https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200313034908/https://www.forbe... I don't think it's a coincidence that Germany, which has performed much better than Italy, has almost as many as the US.

taeric 7y ago

Not necessarily. My contention is that in places with many severe cases, there are also tons of mild cases. In particular, I see no reason to think the young population is not getting it. Toddlers and pre teens. Especially in areas with higher family residence. So, my hypothesis centers around trying to give an explanation for why that population isn't impacted by severe cases. Going off how bad it hit me, if that is what hit me, best I have is lung health. And I don't have unhealthy lungs, all told. I do, however, have a distant history of asthma, and I find it plausible it did damage my lungs long ago. To flip it some. They say even if you survive, you may have lasting lung scarring. What if that preceded the covid?

tathougies 7y ago
> To flip it some. They say even if you survive, you may have lasting lung scarring. What if that preceded the covid? That doesn't make sense. Covid follows the same exponential curve in all countries. If the US has a bunch of latent infections, but no huge surge in pneumonia, then that would imply there is something special about Americans that keep them from developing the worst symptoms, or something special about American old people that, despite contact with the young silent carriers, they do not develop the disease. There is no reason to believe either of those are true. They say we are a week or so behind Italy. Italy is experiencing hospital overruns. If the week-behind estimate (based on actual numbers) is overly conservative, then we would have expected to see hospital overruns in the United States from old people with pneumonia. However, we don't have that. Thus, if the week-behind estimate is overly conservative, we are certainly not at the same point as Italy or ahead of Italy, so we can say that we are anywhere from 1 week to 1 day behind Italy which is still a pretty good bound.
- taeric 7y ago
  That is exactly what I'm asserting. That places not having a surge in severe cases are different than the places that have had a surge. That is literally my hypothesis. The week behind curve on Italy is one to watch. My assertion is that we have had infections hitting here for at least a month. Probably longer. If we don't get the same severe case spike in a week, will everyone just keep upping their models? Because that is what it looks like people are doing.

TMWNN 7y ago

>That would suggest that America's medical system is ahead of Italy, which is suffering heavily due to running out of hospital space. The US has three times as many ICU beds per capita as Italy. https://web.archive.org/web/20200313034908/https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200313034908/https://www.forbe... I don't think it's a coincidence that Germany, which has performed much better than Italy, has almost as many as the US.