4 ms·

Some 15% of people become “seriously” unwell, and require medical intervention such as oxygen. In a situation where the peak is hit unmitigated, these people wi

by jpxw 7y ago

Some 15% of people become “seriously” unwell, and require medical intervention such as oxygen. In a situation where the peak is hit unmitigated, these people will not get the medical care they need, and a lot of them will die.

cm2187 7y ago
The 15% looks implausible given the fatality rates mentioned here. But I would expect a lot of the medical care to be scalable so unmitigated doesn't mean no medical care. We have been building field hospitals in the UK and US (though have barely used them so far), using hotels, etc. Providing oxygen should be fairly straightforward. I understood ventilators was the part that caused a serious scalability bottleneck.
- yomly 7y ago
  Yes - part of the strategy of flattening the curve is to buy time to scale capacity. Dedicated covid19 hospitals also have the advantage of isolating covid19 patients from high risk non-covid19 patients (e.g immunocompromised cancer patients) As the disease is so easily transmitted hospitals are partly buckling due to contamination within hospitals. A regular 50 year old probably has a good chance of surviving coronavirus. A 50 year old who is midway through chemo, probably less so... All of this nuance is hard to express through topline death tolls and mortality rates.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    The "We shouldn't have killed our economy for this" online comments miss some obvious truths - which is that the economy would be crippled by a high peak regardless. At best people wouldn't go to work, at worst they'd struggle in and pass out - or maybe die - in front of their coworkers. So the economy would have ground to a halt anyway as people stayed at home to protect themselves. But it would have done it in an uncontrolled way that didn't inspire confidence in a return to normality. Which is the economic reason for flattening the peak. Serious damage was always inevitable, but there's a huge difference between a barely controlled but orderly temporary shutdown with mitigation measures, and a shutdown caused by mass panic and paranoia. In fact even laggard countries have been forced to take some measures, because when their lives are at risk people and their managers act on their own initiative no matter what the official line is.
    - cm2187 7y ago
      I suspect you are assuming a large proportion of people who get the virus have severe symptoms. The evidence of the contrary seems to emerge.
    - guenthert 7y ago
      Old people, those in the middle of a chemotherapy and many other people at risk aren't going to work and hence won't die in front of their coworkers.

by jpxw 7y ago

cm2187 7y ago

The 15% looks implausible given the fatality rates mentioned here. But I would expect a lot of the medical care to be scalable so unmitigated doesn't mean no medical care. We have been building field hospitals in the UK and US (though have barely used them so far), using hotels, etc. Providing oxygen should be fairly straightforward. I understood ventilators was the part that caused a serious scalability bottleneck.

yomly 7y ago
Yes - part of the strategy of flattening the curve is to buy time to scale capacity. Dedicated covid19 hospitals also have the advantage of isolating covid19 patients from high risk non-covid19 patients (e.g immunocompromised cancer patients) As the disease is so easily transmitted hospitals are partly buckling due to contamination within hospitals. A regular 50 year old probably has a good chance of surviving coronavirus. A 50 year old who is midway through chemo, probably less so... All of this nuance is hard to express through topline death tolls and mortality rates.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  The "We shouldn't have killed our economy for this" online comments miss some obvious truths - which is that the economy would be crippled by a high peak regardless. At best people wouldn't go to work, at worst they'd struggle in and pass out - or maybe die - in front of their coworkers. So the economy would have ground to a halt anyway as people stayed at home to protect themselves. But it would have done it in an uncontrolled way that didn't inspire confidence in a return to normality. Which is the economic reason for flattening the peak. Serious damage was always inevitable, but there's a huge difference between a barely controlled but orderly temporary shutdown with mitigation measures, and a shutdown caused by mass panic and paranoia. In fact even laggard countries have been forced to take some measures, because when their lives are at risk people and their managers act on their own initiative no matter what the official line is.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    I suspect you are assuming a large proportion of people who get the virus have severe symptoms. The evidence of the contrary seems to emerge.
  - guenthert 7y ago
    Old people, those in the middle of a chemotherapy and many other people at risk aren't going to work and hence won't die in front of their coworkers.