4 ms·

> Her first patient was 51. I bet that's younger than most of you are thinking when you think "vulnerable." It looks like he's going to make it and drop into th

by antpls 6y ago

> Her first patient was 51. I bet that's younger than most of you are thinking when you think "vulnerable." It looks like he's going to make it and drop into that large "didn't die" bucket I see referred to here over and over, but to get there he spent _five weeks_ in an ICU bed on a ventilator. My wife has treated lots of elderly people. She's also treated people in their 30's and 40's. People in those age groups have died. Children have died, too. Anecdotal cases don't tell anything. Those people and kids could have other undiagnosed diseases or preconditions, they could lie about age, they could even have been miscategorized. All statistics shows that people at risks are 60+ , and people with another comorbidity. Just one example of study : https://www.jwatch.org/na51296/2020/04/03/how-comorbidities-affect-covid-19-severity-us https://www.jwatch.org/na51296/2020/04/03/how-comorbidities-... There are other studies if you look for "comorbidity covid19"

meheleventyone 6y ago
I think the point there is that the person clogged up an ICU bed for five weeks and will likely recover. Focussing on who will most likely die does not answer the who will overwhelm hospitals question. Increasing pressure in that sense will increase death rate even further amongst vulnerable (to dying from lack of ICU beds) populations.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Now I don't know if what is going on really makes sense or not, and I'm pretty happy to wait 6 months before I decide myself who should and shouldn't have done what - apart from the obvious stuff like the US CDC banning private companies from selling test kits has to be the stupidest crisis response I've seen in my lifetime. The reaction is going to look stupid in hindsight whatever happens, people were forced to make urgent decisions with lousy data. All that said 'the hospitals are being overwhelmed' isn't a good reason to shut down most of the economy. If people are going to park up in their houses for months anyway there isn't much difference whether they are sick or not. I know a bunch of work-hungry lunatics who would much rather catch the disease, risk whatever may happen and get back to work and the data I've seen says it is debatable on whether that is the wrong approach for someone in their 30s or 40s. And on the flip side I don't think there has ever been an experiment like shutting everything down to see what happens. We have no idea if we are playing with fire or or a fluffy pillow for some of these decisions around shutting down industries. There is a correlation with bad economies and war breaking out. Does that happen when the economic wounds are self inflected in a crisis? We really don't know. Probably not. But things are happening very quickly and a lot of serious turbulence is hitting the system. It is a fair observation and somewhat compelling but there needs to be a better reason than 'ICU nurses are overwhelmed with work' to strip people of their right to make their own mistakes. It is good evidence but it is not the end of the conversation.
  - kristianc 6y ago
    Incidentally, they're not always even always overwhelmed. In the UK, where we were told initially that it was not even a question of if the NHS would be overwhelmed but how overwhelmed the NHS would be, hospitals are now operating with record high levels of capacity. There are as many free beds in the NHS today as there are people in beds. The 3,000 extra bed field hospital they built (one of six) has so far seen 19 patients.
    - meheleventyone 6y ago
      Right because the whole country is basically shutdown and you “plan for the worst, hope for the best”. Also looking at the NHS as a whole doesn’t tell the correct story as the virus right now is concentrated in a few hotspots.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > the US CDC banning private companies from selling test kits has to be the stupidest crisis response I've seen in my lifetime. What happens when the kits are faulty or non-experts interpret the data? Lots of folks will think they're safe and go home to visit at-risk elders. > All that said 'the hospitals are being overwhelmed' isn't a good reason to shut down most of the economy. The hospitals are overwhelmed, so there will be no help for you when you need it. Any care that would have addressed accidents, infections, major medical emergencies will be under duress. People will die from preventable reasons. > There is a correlation with bad economies and war breaking out. This is outrageous to suggest. > there needs to be a better reason than 'ICU nurses are overwhelmed with work' to strip people of their right to make their own mistakes. Unfortunately when you get covid-19, you can spread it along and become part of an infection chain that leads to the deaths of others. Do people have the right to drive under the influence?
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > What happens when the kits are faulty or non-experts interpret the data? Lots of folks will think they're safe and go home to visit at-risk elders. That is basically what the CDC did. Having one organisation in a position where a totally ordinary and probably routine failure will kill tens of thousands of people, or worse, is stupid. It isn't like government officials are the only people in the world who care about stopping a blossoming pandemic; the law shouldn't pretend otherwise. Better to ban tests if there is something wrong with them than preemptivly screw up the response.
- j4kp07 6y ago
  The mortality rate is much less than first assumed (by a factor of 50 or more) and contraction rates are higher at hospitals, so the misplaced fear may have compounded the effects. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> Anecdotal cases don't tell anything It just did. Something rather important.

by antpls 6y ago

meheleventyone 6y ago

I think the point there is that the person clogged up an ICU bed for five weeks and will likely recover. Focussing on who will most likely die does not answer the who will overwhelm hospitals question. Increasing pressure in that sense will increase death rate even further amongst vulnerable (to dying from lack of ICU beds) populations.

roenxi 6y ago
Now I don't know if what is going on really makes sense or not, and I'm pretty happy to wait 6 months before I decide myself who should and shouldn't have done what - apart from the obvious stuff like the US CDC banning private companies from selling test kits has to be the stupidest crisis response I've seen in my lifetime. The reaction is going to look stupid in hindsight whatever happens, people were forced to make urgent decisions with lousy data. All that said 'the hospitals are being overwhelmed' isn't a good reason to shut down most of the economy. If people are going to park up in their houses for months anyway there isn't much difference whether they are sick or not. I know a bunch of work-hungry lunatics who would much rather catch the disease, risk whatever may happen and get back to work and the data I've seen says it is debatable on whether that is the wrong approach for someone in their 30s or 40s. And on the flip side I don't think there has ever been an experiment like shutting everything down to see what happens. We have no idea if we are playing with fire or or a fluffy pillow for some of these decisions around shutting down industries. There is a correlation with bad economies and war breaking out. Does that happen when the economic wounds are self inflected in a crisis? We really don't know. Probably not. But things are happening very quickly and a lot of serious turbulence is hitting the system. It is a fair observation and somewhat compelling but there needs to be a better reason than 'ICU nurses are overwhelmed with work' to strip people of their right to make their own mistakes. It is good evidence but it is not the end of the conversation.
- kristianc 6y ago
  Incidentally, they're not always even always overwhelmed. In the UK, where we were told initially that it was not even a question of if the NHS would be overwhelmed but how overwhelmed the NHS would be, hospitals are now operating with record high levels of capacity. There are as many free beds in the NHS today as there are people in beds. The 3,000 extra bed field hospital they built (one of six) has so far seen 19 patients.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    Right because the whole country is basically shutdown and you “plan for the worst, hope for the best”. Also looking at the NHS as a whole doesn’t tell the correct story as the virus right now is concentrated in a few hotspots.
- echelon 6y ago
  > the US CDC banning private companies from selling test kits has to be the stupidest crisis response I've seen in my lifetime. What happens when the kits are faulty or non-experts interpret the data? Lots of folks will think they're safe and go home to visit at-risk elders. > All that said 'the hospitals are being overwhelmed' isn't a good reason to shut down most of the economy. The hospitals are overwhelmed, so there will be no help for you when you need it. Any care that would have addressed accidents, infections, major medical emergencies will be under duress. People will die from preventable reasons. > There is a correlation with bad economies and war breaking out. This is outrageous to suggest. > there needs to be a better reason than 'ICU nurses are overwhelmed with work' to strip people of their right to make their own mistakes. Unfortunately when you get covid-19, you can spread it along and become part of an infection chain that leads to the deaths of others. Do people have the right to drive under the influence?
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > What happens when the kits are faulty or non-experts interpret the data? Lots of folks will think they're safe and go home to visit at-risk elders. That is basically what the CDC did. Having one organisation in a position where a totally ordinary and probably routine failure will kill tens of thousands of people, or worse, is stupid. It isn't like government officials are the only people in the world who care about stopping a blossoming pandemic; the law shouldn't pretend otherwise. Better to ban tests if there is something wrong with them than preemptivly screw up the response.
j4kp07 6y ago
The mortality rate is much less than first assumed (by a factor of 50 or more) and contraction rates are higher at hospitals, so the misplaced fear may have compounded the effects. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

> Anecdotal cases don't tell anything It just did. Something rather important.