6 ms·

Curious: what are you basing this on? Do you have some statistical data that shows hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) c

by amenod 7y ago

Curious: what are you basing this on? Do you have some statistical data that shows hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? I myself haven't yet seen any data that would make this virus any worse than the flu (which means it's still dangerous, just maybe not "everybody-hide-under-the-rock" dangerous). Even data from Italy doesn't show mortality any higher than previous years. Do you have links to data that supports what you wrote? I agree it is a communication disaster though. If I see another chart with red line, logarithmic scale, not starting from zero or with some approximated (red) curve that doesn't specify the formula... :-/

DanBC 7y ago
> hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? What do you think the mechanism is here? Why are people being hospitalised with covid-19, if it's not covid-19 causing the hospitalisation? People under 50 don't spend much time in ITUs on ventilators, until covid-19 happens and now the ITUs are full of people with covid-19 having air pumped into their lungs to push the fluid out. What's causing that if not covid-19?
- thu2111 7y ago
  That's already well understood. People are counted in the stats produced by hospitals if they have the virus, not if they've been hospitalised because of the virus. Literally if someone breaks their arm and they're tested positive, that goes into the stats for "COVID-19 cases". This is also true if someone dies of anything whilst having the virus; they're recorded as a "COVID-19 death". The statistics here don't tell us what they sound like they're telling us. We'd see exactly the same pattern if the rules were suddenly changed to require every hospital admission to be tested for the common cold in a regular year - the number of "cases" and "deaths" would increase dramatically every day. People under 50 don't spend much time in ITUs on ventilators That statement is far too vague. People of all ages spend time on ventilators every years, especially during a flu outbreak. This is especially true of young children (under 5) whom COVID-19 doesn't affect at all! And COVID-19 is known to affect very few under 50s; the numbers here are so tiny the media can literally write entire stories about individual cases. So what does "people" and "much time" mean in this sentence? You can see some data on deaths from pneumonia by age group here: https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#pneumonia-mortality-rates-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#pneumonia-mortality-rat... Of course deaths isn't the same thing as hospitalisation as the young are more likely to recover than the old. So this data isn't exactly what you're talking about, but it's at least quantifiable. It's not safe to make a claim about this virus without comparing it to known values from prior years or outbreaks, when comparing the same thing. Every single number we're being presented with is presented without context and it leads to catastrophic mistakes of understanding. Number of positive test increases is shown without the number of negative test increases as well (i.e. an exponential increase in testing looks like an exponential increase in cases), deaths are counted without any investigation to decide what caused that death and so on. It's very easy to get a totally misleading impression of what's going on. This is likely why in so many parts of the world hospitals are now reporting themselves as empty for weeks, despite the supposed "exponential growth" that should have overwhelmed them by now. In fact in Switzerland hospitals are needing to apply for emergency funding because the huge drop in patient numbers has caused their revenue to dry up.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Your theory is that there is surge of broken hands and unrelated health issues, but all those people also happen to have covid so covid gets blamed? Like, New York and Italia and France have to build make-shift hospitals cause of broken hands epidemic?
    - thu2111 7y ago
      No. There's clearly a virus spreading. It sends some people to hospital. Quite a few viruses do that. Unlike those, this virus is different in one key way - governments have decreed that any death where the virus is present is counted as a "virus death", and have decreed mass testing to find infections. Consider a virus that is not really dangerous but highly infectious, like any common cold or flu. Then many people will turn up at hospital with it, but in reality their problem is something else. With our current data that would look like hospitals being flooded in a way never seen before, but it'd be a data artifact, not something real. As for countries having to build makeshift hospitals, two things: 1. Local overloads happen during bad flu seasons too. You can find many reports in the past about wards being converted, tents being constructed to hold patients on the streets from earlier flu pandemics. Arguably making quick hospitals to handle that sort of bad flu season should be a more common practice. 2. No country anywhere is experiencing general overload. Even in Italy, a few days ago a politician was publicly asking why they're sending patients to Germany when in nearby Veneto there are hospitals that are 2/3rds empty. Projections of mass death requiring everyone to shelter-in-place are based on the belief that everywhere will "go Bergamo" simultaneously at once. That isn't happening, it's not even close to happening. Go investigate and you can find stories of deserted hospitals all over the world right now. They've been cleared out in anticipation of an imminent surge that isn't appearing. That's why Germany and Switzerland can take in patients from neighbouring countries - not only are there no makeshift hospitals but hospitals need financial bailouts because they've having to pay so many staff who are basically idled, like many other businesses. Clearly there's a huge mismatch between the global view and a small number of local hotspots, and our understanding of what's happening is heavily coloured by the press.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
rjtavares 7y ago
> Do you have some statistical data that shows hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? Doesn't that require a study after the fact? So your proposal is to just wait and see? BTW, how do you explain the unprecedented hospitalization and ICU rates in Northern Italy? As an example, this report from European Society of Anaesthesiology[1] mentions: > The number of intensive care beds in Italy continues to change. Initially, there were 500 public intensive care (ICU) beds in Lombardy, and 140 private ICU beds. However, now there are more than 900. [1]: https://www.esahq.org/esa-news/analysis-of-covid-19-data-on-numbers-in-intensive-care-from-italy-european-society-of-anaesthesiology-esa/ https://www.esahq.org/esa-news/analysis-of-covid-19-data-on-...
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  > BTW, how do you explain the unprecedented hospitalization and ICU rates in Northern Italy? A lot of people aren't tested unless they are severely sick, they're just told to stay at home. When they arrive in the hospital they're already in a pretty bad condition, and only then tested. Which means that no therapeutic actions are made until patients are admitted, with the exception of self-administration of paracetamol. > The number of intensive care beds in Italy continues to change. Initially, there were 500 public intensive care (ICU) beds in Lombardy, and 140 private ICU beds. However, now there are more than 900. But a lot of ICU beds were slashed in the past 10 years due to budget cuts, and we were at 80% capacity when the virus hit. If the testing keeps on like this, and we can't even palliatively treat patients until they start suffering respiratory problems, these problems will continue.

by amenod 7y ago

DanBC 7y ago

> hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? What do you think the mechanism is here? Why are people being hospitalised with covid-19, if it's not covid-19 causing the hospitalisation? People under 50 don't spend much time in ITUs on ventilators, until covid-19 happens and now the ITUs are full of people with covid-19 having air pumped into their lungs to push the fluid out. What's causing that if not covid-19?

thu2111 7y ago
That's already well understood. People are counted in the stats produced by hospitals if they have the virus, not if they've been hospitalised because of the virus. Literally if someone breaks their arm and they're tested positive, that goes into the stats for "COVID-19 cases". This is also true if someone dies of anything whilst having the virus; they're recorded as a "COVID-19 death". The statistics here don't tell us what they sound like they're telling us. We'd see exactly the same pattern if the rules were suddenly changed to require every hospital admission to be tested for the common cold in a regular year - the number of "cases" and "deaths" would increase dramatically every day. People under 50 don't spend much time in ITUs on ventilators That statement is far too vague. People of all ages spend time on ventilators every years, especially during a flu outbreak. This is especially true of young children (under 5) whom COVID-19 doesn't affect at all! And COVID-19 is known to affect very few under 50s; the numbers here are so tiny the media can literally write entire stories about individual cases. So what does "people" and "much time" mean in this sentence? You can see some data on deaths from pneumonia by age group here: https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#pneumonia-mortality-rates-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#pneumonia-mortality-rat... Of course deaths isn't the same thing as hospitalisation as the young are more likely to recover than the old. So this data isn't exactly what you're talking about, but it's at least quantifiable. It's not safe to make a claim about this virus without comparing it to known values from prior years or outbreaks, when comparing the same thing. Every single number we're being presented with is presented without context and it leads to catastrophic mistakes of understanding. Number of positive test increases is shown without the number of negative test increases as well (i.e. an exponential increase in testing looks like an exponential increase in cases), deaths are counted without any investigation to decide what caused that death and so on. It's very easy to get a totally misleading impression of what's going on. This is likely why in so many parts of the world hospitals are now reporting themselves as empty for weeks, despite the supposed "exponential growth" that should have overwhelmed them by now. In fact in Switzerland hospitals are needing to apply for emergency funding because the huge drop in patient numbers has caused their revenue to dry up.
- watwut 7y ago
  Your theory is that there is surge of broken hands and unrelated health issues, but all those people also happen to have covid so covid gets blamed? Like, New York and Italia and France have to build make-shift hospitals cause of broken hands epidemic?
  - thu2111 7y ago
    No. There's clearly a virus spreading. It sends some people to hospital. Quite a few viruses do that. Unlike those, this virus is different in one key way - governments have decreed that any death where the virus is present is counted as a "virus death", and have decreed mass testing to find infections. Consider a virus that is not really dangerous but highly infectious, like any common cold or flu. Then many people will turn up at hospital with it, but in reality their problem is something else. With our current data that would look like hospitals being flooded in a way never seen before, but it'd be a data artifact, not something real. As for countries having to build makeshift hospitals, two things: 1. Local overloads happen during bad flu seasons too. You can find many reports in the past about wards being converted, tents being constructed to hold patients on the streets from earlier flu pandemics. Arguably making quick hospitals to handle that sort of bad flu season should be a more common practice. 2. No country anywhere is experiencing general overload. Even in Italy, a few days ago a politician was publicly asking why they're sending patients to Germany when in nearby Veneto there are hospitals that are 2/3rds empty. Projections of mass death requiring everyone to shelter-in-place are based on the belief that everywhere will "go Bergamo" simultaneously at once. That isn't happening, it's not even close to happening. Go investigate and you can find stories of deserted hospitals all over the world right now. They've been cleared out in anticipation of an imminent surge that isn't appearing. That's why Germany and Switzerland can take in patients from neighbouring countries - not only are there no makeshift hospitals but hospitals need financial bailouts because they've having to pay so many staff who are basically idled, like many other businesses. Clearly there's a huge mismatch between the global view and a small number of local hotspots, and our understanding of what's happening is heavily coloured by the press.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago

rjtavares 7y ago

> Do you have some statistical data that shows hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? Doesn't that require a study after the fact? So your proposal is to just wait and see? BTW, how do you explain the unprecedented hospitalization and ICU rates in Northern Italy? As an example, this report from European Society of Anaesthesiology[1] mentions: > The number of intensive care beds in Italy continues to change. Initially, there were 500 public intensive care (ICU) beds in Lombardy, and 140 private ICU beds. However, now there are more than 900. [1]: https://www.esahq.org/esa-news/analysis-of-covid-19-data-on-numbers-in-intensive-care-from-italy-european-society-of-anaesthesiology-esa/ https://www.esahq.org/esa-news/analysis-of-covid-19-data-on-...

lbeltrame 7y ago
> BTW, how do you explain the unprecedented hospitalization and ICU rates in Northern Italy? A lot of people aren't tested unless they are severely sick, they're just told to stay at home. When they arrive in the hospital they're already in a pretty bad condition, and only then tested. Which means that no therapeutic actions are made until patients are admitted, with the exception of self-administration of paracetamol. > The number of intensive care beds in Italy continues to change. Initially, there were 500 public intensive care (ICU) beds in Lombardy, and 140 private ICU beds. However, now there are more than 900. But a lot of ICU beds were slashed in the past 10 years due to budget cuts, and we were at 80% capacity when the virus hit. If the testing keeps on like this, and we can't even palliatively treat patients until they start suffering respiratory problems, these problems will continue.