9 ms·

As long as you don’t have any other diseases, you’re statistically sort of “safe”. 0.2% risk of dying for your age group regardless of physical health according

As long as you don’t have any other diseases, you’re statistically sort of “safe”. 0.2% risk of dying for your age group regardless of physical health according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... Wash your hands, stay safe.

bronipstid 7y ago
For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. That's why governments are finally admitting "Herd Immunity/Flatten the Curve" without total containment is not an option.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Flat statements about what strategies are or aren't options don't seem helpful. It's not a good option, ideally we'll have total containment, but it's important that we not see it as a betrayal if it's decided in a couple weeks that total containment isn't feasible.
  - bronipstid 7y ago
    It absolutely would be a betrayal of the people you'd be giving up on to not do everything we can to help them while we still can. You can advocate for or against taking strong action but you can't tell people you're allowing to die to not be upset about it.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      You certainly can't tell people not to be upset! Every death is tragedy; people have a right to be upset even about rarer causes of death that are harder to mitigate. (From personal experience, I can tell you that anyone who's seen an alcoholic family member die learns to sympathize with the Prohibitionists.) But it's not a betrayal to acknowledge their pain while recognizing nothing feasible can be done.
- ejstronge 7y ago
  > For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. I’m not sure why you’re comparing the all-age mortality of flu to the age-specific mortality of COVID-19. The relevant metric would be about 0.02% [1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html
  - bronipstid 7y ago
    Why not? It's just giving some context to people who may think .2% is a "low" mortality rate. Thanks for the age specific number. That shows my point even more.
    - ejstronge 7y ago
      Ah, I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make, but I thought the all-age figure understates how much more deadly COVID-19 is compared to influenza.
guscost 7y ago
> Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%). Nonsense! Unless we can count every death caused by the virus, and correctly diagnose every infection, then this is a ridiculous (and irresponsible) guess. The number for "all cases" comes from the CCDC paper: > A total of 72,314 patient records—44,672 (61.8%) confirmed cases, 16,186 (22.4%) suspected cases, 10,567 (14.6%) clinically diagnosed cases (Hubei Province only), and 889 asymptomatic cases (1.2%)—contributed data for the analysis. Another more recent study guesses that 86% of cases are asymptomatic and/or otherwise undocumented: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/scie...
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Yeah, it's almost certainly way overblown. People are freaking out over a bad flu season. I could see a case made in a future retrospective that the exponential increase we're seeing in cases is actually an exponential increase in the number of available tests disseminated. Until we have antibody tests, the PCR-based tests we're using will only tell us if you actively have the disease not if you had it ages ago and already recovered. This disease could have easily spread unnoticed (due to the overwhelmingly mild flulike symptoms most people get) for months. Due to its highly-contageous nature, it probably did. Until we calm down and analyze what all actually happened my guess is just as good as anyone else.
  - mrtnmcc 7y ago
    Right now tests are being allocated to critically ill or dead people suspected of Covid-19. Ideally most cause of deaths are caught so the absolute number of deaths are a decent indicator of spread, but they are lagged by probably 7-14 days or the time until critical + testing and reporting time. Also I am 32yo male on day 5 of Covid-19 symptoms and have hopefully been through the worst part (immune response in lungs). AMA.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      AMA: Was it any different than a bad flu for you?
notahacker 7y ago
This is one of the few cases where the raw data is so systematically flawed - many younger people are completely asymptomatic or not being tested because they don't need hospitalization - the anecdata might give you a better picture of the relative risk. The youngest of the UK's >100 confirmed COVID-19 fatalities was in his forties and already terminally ill. Young people aren't totally safe and should certainly avoid contracting it if possible with a view to protecting the people they come into contact with and not taking up a hospital bed if they're at the unlucky end of the spectrum, but relatively speaking they're a tiny fraction of the overall casualties, and probably have more exposure to the virus than the elderly due to more active social/work lives.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  Not to disagree with anything you said here, but there was recently a story comparing the fates of two young Chinese medical workers who both contracted the disease and who required medical care. The punchline is that a 29-year old physician with no co-morbidities died a terrible death. Be careful out there no matter your age or health status. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/co...
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    This guy is pretty clearly an outlier (or there is some missing information). In Italy only 5 people under 40 have died, out of approx. 2500 deaths so far, and every one of the 5 had an existing serious illness.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      "Didn't die" is not the same as "was not harmed". This relentless focus only on the people who died misses the point: covid-19 puts people in hospital, sometimes into intensive care, and many of those people end up with damaged lungs.
      - 7y ago
Vomzor 7y ago
Survive yes. But half the patients in intensive care in Holland and France are in the 30 to 60 age bracket. And we don’t know yet what the longterm damage is after you survive.
- Darkphibre 7y ago
  Not to mention that survival rates start to go down as the medical establishment succumbs to the strain. I'm isolating myself as much as possible and engaging in rather stringent protocols (N95 mask and gloves while out/ disrobe, wash clothes, and bathe on return), with the goal of staving off contraction until Fall if at all possible. Maybe the Chloroquine research will prove effective by then. I'm in Kirkland/Redmond, so the risk is higher here than elsewhere at the moment.

bronipstid 7y ago

For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. That's why governments are finally admitting "Herd Immunity/Flatten the Curve" without total containment is not an option.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Flat statements about what strategies are or aren't options don't seem helpful. It's not a good option, ideally we'll have total containment, but it's important that we not see it as a betrayal if it's decided in a couple weeks that total containment isn't feasible.
- bronipstid 7y ago
  It absolutely would be a betrayal of the people you'd be giving up on to not do everything we can to help them while we still can. You can advocate for or against taking strong action but you can't tell people you're allowing to die to not be upset about it.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    You certainly can't tell people not to be upset! Every death is tragedy; people have a right to be upset even about rarer causes of death that are harder to mitigate. (From personal experience, I can tell you that anyone who's seen an alcoholic family member die learns to sympathize with the Prohibitionists.) But it's not a betrayal to acknowledge their pain while recognizing nothing feasible can be done.
ejstronge 7y ago
> For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. I’m not sure why you’re comparing the all-age mortality of flu to the age-specific mortality of COVID-19. The relevant metric would be about 0.02% [1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html
- bronipstid 7y ago
  Why not? It's just giving some context to people who may think .2% is a "low" mortality rate. Thanks for the age specific number. That shows my point even more.
  - ejstronge 7y ago
    Ah, I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make, but I thought the all-age figure understates how much more deadly COVID-19 is compared to influenza.

guscost 7y ago

> Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%). Nonsense! Unless we can count every death caused by the virus, and correctly diagnose every infection, then this is a ridiculous (and irresponsible) guess. The number for "all cases" comes from the CCDC paper: > A total of 72,314 patient records—44,672 (61.8%) confirmed cases, 16,186 (22.4%) suspected cases, 10,567 (14.6%) clinically diagnosed cases (Hubei Province only), and 889 asymptomatic cases (1.2%)—contributed data for the analysis. Another more recent study guesses that 86% of cases are asymptomatic and/or otherwise undocumented: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/scie...

arcticbull 7y ago
Yeah, it's almost certainly way overblown. People are freaking out over a bad flu season. I could see a case made in a future retrospective that the exponential increase we're seeing in cases is actually an exponential increase in the number of available tests disseminated. Until we have antibody tests, the PCR-based tests we're using will only tell us if you actively have the disease not if you had it ages ago and already recovered. This disease could have easily spread unnoticed (due to the overwhelmingly mild flulike symptoms most people get) for months. Due to its highly-contageous nature, it probably did. Until we calm down and analyze what all actually happened my guess is just as good as anyone else.
- mrtnmcc 7y ago
  Right now tests are being allocated to critically ill or dead people suspected of Covid-19. Ideally most cause of deaths are caught so the absolute number of deaths are a decent indicator of spread, but they are lagged by probably 7-14 days or the time until critical + testing and reporting time. Also I am 32yo male on day 5 of Covid-19 symptoms and have hopefully been through the worst part (immune response in lungs). AMA.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    AMA: Was it any different than a bad flu for you?

notahacker 7y ago

This is one of the few cases where the raw data is so systematically flawed - many younger people are completely asymptomatic or not being tested because they don't need hospitalization - the anecdata might give you a better picture of the relative risk. The youngest of the UK's >100 confirmed COVID-19 fatalities was in his forties and already terminally ill. Young people aren't totally safe and should certainly avoid contracting it if possible with a view to protecting the people they come into contact with and not taking up a hospital bed if they're at the unlucky end of the spectrum, but relatively speaking they're a tiny fraction of the overall casualties, and probably have more exposure to the virus than the elderly due to more active social/work lives.

mikeyouse 7y ago
Not to disagree with anything you said here, but there was recently a story comparing the fates of two young Chinese medical workers who both contracted the disease and who required medical care. The punchline is that a 29-year old physician with no co-morbidities died a terrible death. Be careful out there no matter your age or health status. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/co...
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  This guy is pretty clearly an outlier (or there is some missing information). In Italy only 5 people under 40 have died, out of approx. 2500 deaths so far, and every one of the 5 had an existing serious illness.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    "Didn't die" is not the same as "was not harmed". This relentless focus only on the people who died misses the point: covid-19 puts people in hospital, sometimes into intensive care, and many of those people end up with damaged lungs.
    - 7y ago

Vomzor 7y ago

Survive yes. But half the patients in intensive care in Holland and France are in the 30 to 60 age bracket. And we don’t know yet what the longterm damage is after you survive.

Darkphibre 7y ago
Not to mention that survival rates start to go down as the medical establishment succumbs to the strain. I'm isolating myself as much as possible and engaging in rather stringent protocols (N95 mask and gloves while out/ disrobe, wash clothes, and bathe on return), with the goal of staving off contraction until Fall if at all possible. Maybe the Chloroquine research will prove effective by then. I'm in Kirkland/Redmond, so the risk is higher here than elsewhere at the moment.