4 ms·

It’s actually too flat in Seattle. We’ve flatlined at about 100 new cases a day. At that rate, we won’t get heard immunity for many decades. If we raise quar

It’s actually too flat in Seattle. We’ve flatlined at about 100 new cases a day. At that rate, we won’t get heard immunity for many decades. If we raise quarantine in May it’ll just start spreading again, and we’ll have kicked the can down the road. I think we should start considering letting young, healthy people return to public spaces, should they so desire.

ttul 7y ago
That is insanity. Flat is absolutely the best we can do. Herd immunity is a fallacy when the result of loosening social distancing restrictions is to overwhelm the medical system and cause unnecessary death. Let young people congregate? A healthy fraction of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are young. They may survive better, but they take up a lot of ventilators in the process. Run out of ventilators and those young people will die in large numbers. No, the only reasonable endgame to COVID-19 is to flatten the curve and keep it flat until we have some treatment tools that work. Ultimately, a vaccine. But until then, drug therapies that have been proven out in reasonably sized trials.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Can you provide the numbers for those young people on ventilators?
  - eBombzor 7y ago
    https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/coronavirus-making-young-adults-sick-and-spreading-through-them?utm_source=fiat-lux&utm_medium=internal-email&utm_campaign=article-general&utm_content=text https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/coronavirus-maki... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm > Among the first 4,226 cases in the U.S., more than half of patients who were hospitalized were under the age of 65, and one in five were aged 20 to 44. No source on ventilators but "hospitalized" is close enough.
    - DeonPenny 7y ago
      This seems to be one of those lies that keep getting circulated. 44 is not young. when you really look at the data yes 1/5 are hospitalized, but if you 40-50 you are .4% likely to die if your 30-40 it's 4 times less likely .1% and if your 20 -30 its ten times less likely. Its like they presented the data that way just to scare people.
eBombzor 7y ago
What? Why don't we not risk another wave by letting people out and instead just wait for a vaccine before completely resuming normality. Less people die this way.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  12-18 months of quarantine has both a direct and indirect cost to life as well. For the indirect - shutting everything down for a couple of weeks has already created ENORMOUS financial stress for millions now out of work. Many of these people don't have a month of savings left for bills let alone 18 months (which is beyond the recommended runway to have in savings for those already better off) and society isn't prepared to pickup the cost for them either.
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  Vaccine takes years to make a year and a half is a guess. No pandemic is cure that way, sars, zika, etc. They all end with herd immunity. and if we wait to long those people making the vaccine would starve long before that during the economic collapse anyway.
redis_mlc 7y ago
nostromo has made some good points. We're not going to stay in lockdown for 18 months, which is what the estimate is for a cure. If it's true that covid-19 doesn't like warm temperatures, that would be great, but that's still 2 months away for the USA. Otherwise we need to start thinking of when to end lockdown, whether that's ideal or not.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Do you see a correlation in the current data that has the country's jan-mar temperature as a significant component?
phaemon 7y ago
Those certainly aren't Washington numbers, so where are you getting the "100 new cases a day" from?
- nostromo 7y ago
  Seattle != Washington For the past two weeks we've been averaging 100-200 identified cases a day in King County. New cases has not been growing much since lock down. King County population is 2,233,163. 200 new cases a day means 50% exposure (for heard immunity) will come in 5,583 days... over 15 years from now.
DeonPenny 7y ago
Theres a MIT article about this. At some point this has to be lifted because the area of the curve will stay the same. 100,000 ICU is 100,000 ICU we are just spreading it out but we need to be efficient with the pace of it.

ttul 7y ago

That is insanity. Flat is absolutely the best we can do. Herd immunity is a fallacy when the result of loosening social distancing restrictions is to overwhelm the medical system and cause unnecessary death. Let young people congregate? A healthy fraction of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are young. They may survive better, but they take up a lot of ventilators in the process. Run out of ventilators and those young people will die in large numbers. No, the only reasonable endgame to COVID-19 is to flatten the curve and keep it flat until we have some treatment tools that work. Ultimately, a vaccine. But until then, drug therapies that have been proven out in reasonably sized trials.

rimliu 7y ago
Can you provide the numbers for those young people on ventilators?
- eBombzor 7y ago
  https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/coronavirus-making-young-adults-sick-and-spreading-through-them?utm_source=fiat-lux&utm_medium=internal-email&utm_campaign=article-general&utm_content=text https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/coronavirus-maki... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm > Among the first 4,226 cases in the U.S., more than half of patients who were hospitalized were under the age of 65, and one in five were aged 20 to 44. No source on ventilators but "hospitalized" is close enough.
  - DeonPenny 7y ago
    This seems to be one of those lies that keep getting circulated. 44 is not young. when you really look at the data yes 1/5 are hospitalized, but if you 40-50 you are .4% likely to die if your 30-40 it's 4 times less likely .1% and if your 20 -30 its ten times less likely. Its like they presented the data that way just to scare people.

eBombzor 7y ago

What? Why don't we not risk another wave by letting people out and instead just wait for a vaccine before completely resuming normality. Less people die this way.

zamadatix 7y ago
12-18 months of quarantine has both a direct and indirect cost to life as well. For the indirect - shutting everything down for a couple of weeks has already created ENORMOUS financial stress for millions now out of work. Many of these people don't have a month of savings left for bills let alone 18 months (which is beyond the recommended runway to have in savings for those already better off) and society isn't prepared to pickup the cost for them either.
DeonPenny 7y ago
Vaccine takes years to make a year and a half is a guess. No pandemic is cure that way, sars, zika, etc. They all end with herd immunity. and if we wait to long those people making the vaccine would starve long before that during the economic collapse anyway.

redis_mlc 7y ago

nostromo has made some good points. We're not going to stay in lockdown for 18 months, which is what the estimate is for a cure. If it's true that covid-19 doesn't like warm temperatures, that would be great, but that's still 2 months away for the USA. Otherwise we need to start thinking of when to end lockdown, whether that's ideal or not.

PeterStuer 7y ago
Do you see a correlation in the current data that has the country's jan-mar temperature as a significant component?

phaemon 7y ago

Those certainly aren't Washington numbers, so where are you getting the "100 new cases a day" from?

nostromo 7y ago
Seattle != Washington For the past two weeks we've been averaging 100-200 identified cases a day in King County. New cases has not been growing much since lock down. King County population is 2,233,163. 200 new cases a day means 50% exposure (for heard immunity) will come in 5,583 days... over 15 years from now.

DeonPenny 7y ago

Theres a MIT article about this. At some point this has to be lifted because the area of the curve will stay the same. 100,000 ICU is 100,000 ICU we are just spreading it out but we need to be efficient with the pace of it.