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We'd also need to make the decsision to continue a lockdown over a virus with a 99.5% survival rate or not. Seeing at the flu has a 99.9% survival rate does it

We'd also need to make the decsision to continue a lockdown over a virus with a 99.5% survival rate or not. Seeing at the flu has a 99.9% survival rate does it make sense to destroy the economy over that.

tunesmith 7y ago
Hospitalization rates per infection are greater for covid than for flu. What matters is hospital capacity, to protect against greater non-covid death rates.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I agree, but this is not universally believed. Many people argue that hospital capacity is not what matters, and we must continue lockdowns even if hospitals won't be overloaded to eradicate the disease.
  - tunesmith 7y ago
    Ah, yeah. If hospitals are fine, I think lockdowns can be swapped for a contact tracing system, assuming enough people use it and assuming easy test access and 24-hour test turnarounds. (And even then... use masks.) But, in the absence of that, if a hospital is at 50% capacity, I don't agree with opening up a lockdown until a hospital gets to 95% capacity. (The game changes entirely if we get a good anti-viral.)
  - DeonPenny 7y ago
    But if that held then we'd eradicate flu and the common cold two. Quarantines don't eradicate disease they slow the spread but the area under the curve is constant. I doubt will change the number of infected is a constant regardless of the rate.
    - tunesmith 7y ago
      That's only true if medical and technological advancements don't happen. A vaccine a year from now means less death if we've locked down in the meantime, compared to if we haven't locked down. Similarly, if we scale up testing and contact tracing to the point we can eventually eradicate the disease through targeted quarantines, a preceding lockdown means less death. If instead we don't experience any advancements, then right, it just means the same number of infections are spread out over a longer period of time.
      - DeonPenny 7y ago
        Which for me the later seems more possible simply because vaccines from what I heard would take 5 years. Thinks like SARS and zika still have no vaccine despite being around for years.
    - greedo 7y ago
      The flu mutates. The common cold isn't a single virus, but one of hundreds lumped together, that also mutate. So there's no long term herd immunity for either.
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  But we can't say that it could just be that infection because of a lack of herd immunity is the only thing preventing something like the flu from having the same result. If they have the same hospitalization rate yet covid-19 infection rate is twice the flu because of the lack of immunity you would immediately double the hospitalizations. There's two variables in that equation
vkou 7y ago
First of all, it's not 99.5%. A naive interpretation of these numbers is a 1% death rate, not 0.5%. 15,000 dead, out of an estimated ~1,680,000 with antibodies. Second of all, deaths lag infections, and the actual death rate is closer to double the current death rate. Third of all, you have no idea that if someone has antibodies, they are immune. As far as I know, nobody has tried infecting antibody-positive people... Or released studies that followed up on them, compared to an antibody-negative control group. Fourth of all, World War II 'only' killed 3% of the world's population. And lastly, if you lift the lockdown, and everyone gets sick all at once, the infection rate will spike dramatically. Because when hospitals are overloaded, people who can be saved are left to die. Not to mention that you'll be killing thousands of doctors, due to the high viral load they are exposed to.
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  Only if you think cuomo presentation is wrong because that what they quoted. Also you numbers are wrong 15,000 is only .18% of 1.6 million not 1.8%. Also death lag infections in numbers but that wouldn't change the ratio of deaths to infections. Unless the infection rates are going up or down. Right now infection rates are lowering so you'd expect the death to infection rate to continue to stay in line with the 0.5% infection rate. Also we have never shut down the economy with other disease it was generally assumed that you'd at least have limited immunity to disease with antibodies. I don't think swine flu or bird flu had this react why should this. If we know only the sickest people are getting sick why don't we lift the quaretine on the people less likely to get sick or people with antibodies. It seems like we made the lockdown decision based on a lack of data. I don't know if continuing to do it when we do make sense. Especially because it could make people more sick not less. Edit: correction used 8 million as denominator. 89% is correct
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    0.89%: https://www.google.com/search?q=15000+%2F+1.68+million+*+100 https://www.google.com/search?q=15000+%2F+1.68+million+*+100
legulere 7y ago
Stating the survival rate really hides how there is around an order of magnitude difference in the death rate. And that ignoring that while immunity towards various types of influenza is widespread, there is no previous immunity against COVID-19 apart from a handful of people that had SARS or MERS before.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  I wouldn't expect SARS-CoV-2 immunity from a previous MERS infection, AFAIK their similarity is in their severity of outcomes, not in the immune responses.
Jeema101 7y ago
It's possible that a less interventionist approach by the government would also have the exact opposite effect by reducing public confidence in the response, and in the safety of going outside, since nothing is being enforced. As Joseph Stiglitz said the other day "In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression."

tunesmith 7y ago

Hospitalization rates per infection are greater for covid than for flu. What matters is hospital capacity, to protect against greater non-covid death rates.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I agree, but this is not universally believed. Many people argue that hospital capacity is not what matters, and we must continue lockdowns even if hospitals won't be overloaded to eradicate the disease.
- tunesmith 7y ago
  Ah, yeah. If hospitals are fine, I think lockdowns can be swapped for a contact tracing system, assuming enough people use it and assuming easy test access and 24-hour test turnarounds. (And even then... use masks.) But, in the absence of that, if a hospital is at 50% capacity, I don't agree with opening up a lockdown until a hospital gets to 95% capacity. (The game changes entirely if we get a good anti-viral.)
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  But if that held then we'd eradicate flu and the common cold two. Quarantines don't eradicate disease they slow the spread but the area under the curve is constant. I doubt will change the number of infected is a constant regardless of the rate.
  - tunesmith 7y ago
    That's only true if medical and technological advancements don't happen. A vaccine a year from now means less death if we've locked down in the meantime, compared to if we haven't locked down. Similarly, if we scale up testing and contact tracing to the point we can eventually eradicate the disease through targeted quarantines, a preceding lockdown means less death. If instead we don't experience any advancements, then right, it just means the same number of infections are spread out over a longer period of time.
    - DeonPenny 7y ago
      Which for me the later seems more possible simply because vaccines from what I heard would take 5 years. Thinks like SARS and zika still have no vaccine despite being around for years.
  - greedo 7y ago
    The flu mutates. The common cold isn't a single virus, but one of hundreds lumped together, that also mutate. So there's no long term herd immunity for either.
DeonPenny 7y ago
But we can't say that it could just be that infection because of a lack of herd immunity is the only thing preventing something like the flu from having the same result. If they have the same hospitalization rate yet covid-19 infection rate is twice the flu because of the lack of immunity you would immediately double the hospitalizations. There's two variables in that equation

vkou 7y ago

First of all, it's not 99.5%. A naive interpretation of these numbers is a 1% death rate, not 0.5%. 15,000 dead, out of an estimated ~1,680,000 with antibodies. Second of all, deaths lag infections, and the actual death rate is closer to double the current death rate. Third of all, you have no idea that if someone has antibodies, they are immune. As far as I know, nobody has tried infecting antibody-positive people... Or released studies that followed up on them, compared to an antibody-negative control group. Fourth of all, World War II 'only' killed 3% of the world's population. And lastly, if you lift the lockdown, and everyone gets sick all at once, the infection rate will spike dramatically. Because when hospitals are overloaded, people who can be saved are left to die. Not to mention that you'll be killing thousands of doctors, due to the high viral load they are exposed to.

DeonPenny 7y ago
Only if you think cuomo presentation is wrong because that what they quoted. Also you numbers are wrong 15,000 is only .18% of 1.6 million not 1.8%. Also death lag infections in numbers but that wouldn't change the ratio of deaths to infections. Unless the infection rates are going up or down. Right now infection rates are lowering so you'd expect the death to infection rate to continue to stay in line with the 0.5% infection rate. Also we have never shut down the economy with other disease it was generally assumed that you'd at least have limited immunity to disease with antibodies. I don't think swine flu or bird flu had this react why should this. If we know only the sickest people are getting sick why don't we lift the quaretine on the people less likely to get sick or people with antibodies. It seems like we made the lockdown decision based on a lack of data. I don't know if continuing to do it when we do make sense. Especially because it could make people more sick not less. Edit: correction used 8 million as denominator. 89% is correct
- saalweachter 7y ago
  0.89%: https://www.google.com/search?q=15000+%2F+1.68+million+*+100 https://www.google.com/search?q=15000+%2F+1.68+million+*+100

legulere 7y ago

Stating the survival rate really hides how there is around an order of magnitude difference in the death rate. And that ignoring that while immunity towards various types of influenza is widespread, there is no previous immunity against COVID-19 apart from a handful of people that had SARS or MERS before.

Marsymars 7y ago
I wouldn't expect SARS-CoV-2 immunity from a previous MERS infection, AFAIK their similarity is in their severity of outcomes, not in the immune responses.

Jeema101 7y ago

It's possible that a less interventionist approach by the government would also have the exact opposite effect by reducing public confidence in the response, and in the safety of going outside, since nothing is being enforced. As Joseph Stiglitz said the other day "In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression."