4 ms·

not sure what you mean by anomaly, US looks a lot like Sweden, a country that looks like will be faring the best counter-intuitive as it may sound today, US mi

not sure what you mean by anomaly, US looks a lot like Sweden, a country that looks like will be faring the best counter-intuitive as it may sound today, US might just end up the country that did really well. Most large countries are simply not measuring/admitting the real number of cases.

kmonsen 6y ago
This is false, if you look at expected deaths the US is sky high while all of Europe is under control. If we don't get vaccine then sure all countries might eventually end up the same, but Europe is largely back to normal living with kids back at school with almost no cases. In the US we still have lockdowns and no control at all.
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  >This is false, if you look at expected deaths So, would it be true if you looked at recorded deaths? After all, at the beginning of the pandemic they were expecting millions of deaths in the US.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    At the beginning of the pandemic, there was less information on the nature and pathology of the disease, as well as how well governments and people would be able to adapt new behaviors to contain it. With updated information, we can narrow the expectations between the most optimistic and pessimistic models, but recorded deaths will always be a lagging indicator. As of right now, the fivethirtyeight summary (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts) has a spread in the US between 231,000 Americans dead by Oct. 17 (IHME) and 205,000 dead by Oct 17 (Los Alamos). What has changed since the disease started is the death curve has gone from exponential to linear (thank goodness), which is likely due to public health controls having an effect (we can guess this because the curve linearized around mid-April, which is about a month after California began treating the disease as an emergency and 2 weeks after New York followed suit). As it stands, it'd take over a decade to reach a million US deaths, assuming nothing changes (i.e. assuming people continue to avoid unnecessary contact and travel and protect their respiration); had the curve stayed exponential, it would have taken under a year.
- sojournerc 6y ago
  Depends on where in the US. There is no nationwide policy. My nephews in Colorado are back at school half time...
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  There's also the risk of hospital saturation; even if we don't get a vaccine, countries that manage to slow the spread and diminish the effective R0 enough that their hospital capacity remains unsaturated will have more survivors than countries that don't. The disease is 99+% survivable with optimal medical care during the worst phase of it and significantly less survivable without it.
  - glofish 6y ago
    The disease is 99.99% survivable with no medical care whatsoever. So much so more than half of the people don't even notice they have it.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I was referring to the symptomatic cases, which are the relevant ones if we're trying to estimate survivability from death statistics or risk of hospital saturation.
      - glofish 6y ago
        there has never been hospital saturation or even close to it. All the excess hospital beds built at the height of the hysteria went unused.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        Not in the US, thankfully. NYC got close. Italy got saturated, and the outcome was tragic. https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/03/19/italian-hospitals https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/03/19/italian-h...
- glofish 6y ago
  Have you checked the numbers in Europe? Most countries have twice as many cases now than at their peak in Spring and the trend is accelerating. As for most of Latin America, they are just not reporting the numbers because they are too poor to test. Sky high death rate? Not even close. The worst hit countries, deaths per population are the European ones. Again, that is not a reflection on the societies, just perhaps their age distribution and other factors. That the US is doing really badly is just propaganda fueled by the imminent election. Again, it is normal, election propaganda is anything but fair. US is actually doing well overall.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    > Most countries have twice as many cases now than at their peak in Spring and the trend is accelerating. To put it in context, "twice as many cases than in spring" can still be per capita 10 times smaller number than in USA. > US is actually doing well overall. Yeah, if the number of deaths doubles, USA can be number one! Wait, that is actually not a good thing...
ragazzina 6y ago
How can you say this when the US are in the top 10 countries by deaths/population?
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  Sweden has always been near the top 10 (currently 13th; to give some context, Italy is 12th) and somehow the myth of "Sweden is magically successful at fighting COVID-19" refuses to die. If having 1 in 1730 people die is such a huge success, I suppose having 1 in 1690 die is okay, too. (To avoid misunderstanding, no, I don't think any of these numbers is okay. Many developed countries have an order of magnitude better results.)

kmonsen 6y ago

This is false, if you look at expected deaths the US is sky high while all of Europe is under control. If we don't get vaccine then sure all countries might eventually end up the same, but Europe is largely back to normal living with kids back at school with almost no cases. In the US we still have lockdowns and no control at all.

Fjolsvith 6y ago
>This is false, if you look at expected deaths So, would it be true if you looked at recorded deaths? After all, at the beginning of the pandemic they were expecting millions of deaths in the US.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  At the beginning of the pandemic, there was less information on the nature and pathology of the disease, as well as how well governments and people would be able to adapt new behaviors to contain it. With updated information, we can narrow the expectations between the most optimistic and pessimistic models, but recorded deaths will always be a lagging indicator. As of right now, the fivethirtyeight summary (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts) has a spread in the US between 231,000 Americans dead by Oct. 17 (IHME) and 205,000 dead by Oct 17 (Los Alamos). What has changed since the disease started is the death curve has gone from exponential to linear (thank goodness), which is likely due to public health controls having an effect (we can guess this because the curve linearized around mid-April, which is about a month after California began treating the disease as an emergency and 2 weeks after New York followed suit). As it stands, it'd take over a decade to reach a million US deaths, assuming nothing changes (i.e. assuming people continue to avoid unnecessary contact and travel and protect their respiration); had the curve stayed exponential, it would have taken under a year.
sojournerc 6y ago
Depends on where in the US. There is no nationwide policy. My nephews in Colorado are back at school half time...
shadowgovt 6y ago
There's also the risk of hospital saturation; even if we don't get a vaccine, countries that manage to slow the spread and diminish the effective R0 enough that their hospital capacity remains unsaturated will have more survivors than countries that don't. The disease is 99+% survivable with optimal medical care during the worst phase of it and significantly less survivable without it.
- glofish 6y ago
  The disease is 99.99% survivable with no medical care whatsoever. So much so more than half of the people don't even notice they have it.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I was referring to the symptomatic cases, which are the relevant ones if we're trying to estimate survivability from death statistics or risk of hospital saturation.
    - glofish 6y ago
      there has never been hospital saturation or even close to it. All the excess hospital beds built at the height of the hysteria went unused.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        Not in the US, thankfully. NYC got close. Italy got saturated, and the outcome was tragic. https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/03/19/italian-hospitals https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/03/19/italian-h...
glofish 6y ago
Have you checked the numbers in Europe? Most countries have twice as many cases now than at their peak in Spring and the trend is accelerating. As for most of Latin America, they are just not reporting the numbers because they are too poor to test. Sky high death rate? Not even close. The worst hit countries, deaths per population are the European ones. Again, that is not a reflection on the societies, just perhaps their age distribution and other factors. That the US is doing really badly is just propaganda fueled by the imminent election. Again, it is normal, election propaganda is anything but fair. US is actually doing well overall.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > Most countries have twice as many cases now than at their peak in Spring and the trend is accelerating. To put it in context, "twice as many cases than in spring" can still be per capita 10 times smaller number than in USA. > US is actually doing well overall. Yeah, if the number of deaths doubles, USA can be number one! Wait, that is actually not a good thing...

ragazzina 6y ago

How can you say this when the US are in the top 10 countries by deaths/population?

Viliam1234 6y ago
Sweden has always been near the top 10 (currently 13th; to give some context, Italy is 12th) and somehow the myth of "Sweden is magically successful at fighting COVID-19" refuses to die. If having 1 in 1730 people die is such a huge success, I suppose having 1 in 1690 die is okay, too. (To avoid misunderstanding, no, I don't think any of these numbers is okay. Many developed countries have an order of magnitude better results.)