5 ms·

What have we seen so far? In America at least, 190k dead, but over 95% of them are over 55 and >80% over 65. Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities. P

What have we seen so far? In America at least, 190k dead, but over 95% of them are over 55 and >80% over 65. Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities. People have complained the US lockdowns weren't strong enough compared to Australia, NZ; or we lacked the testing of Korea or Germany. What do we see now? We're getting close to the same per-capita rates of Sweden, which had a much more liberal policy (although they still locked down quite a bit). All the facts so far makes it seem like this was a gorse overreaction. Yes a lot of people got sick and died. NYC was bad, but it also showed we should have focused on isolating the elderly and high risk instead of shutting down everything. I wrote this a few months back and still stand behind it: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease... History will not look back kindly on this year.

bearjaws 6y ago
Working in hospitals, nobody will say it was a gross over-reaction. Everyone agrees we didn't delay the breakout long enough to get the right staff, equipment, and materials in place to treat, resulting in tens of thousands of additional deaths. Here in Florida when cases spiked, patients were having to be sedated with drugs not originally meant for sedation, due to etomidate, ketamine, and propofol supplies running out. There was no PPE, everyone was reusing masks and gowns. Doctors got sick, some died. Everyone was working 60+ hours and I know many hospitals were offering $100+/hr with multi thousand dollar bonuses per week to get staff to come in. Staff still turned down these offers, due to the stress. Advent Health setup a dedicated hospital for COVID in every major city to try and efficiently use PPE, they were quickly overwhelmed and the covid patient's flooded every hospital, resulting in even less PPE availability. One ICU nurse I know summed it up best "We went from working 2-3 patients that each had one problem, to work 5-8 patients, each one with a myriad of problems. I want to go back to the simple patients, I have to code patients several times a week now." Sure maybe if our government was effective we could have come up with a better plan, but implementing a "segregation" of elderly from the general population simply wasn't going to happen. The efforts to "lower the curve" were 100% necessary and didn't go far enough or last long enough. Now we get the worst of everything, mass death, continuing outbreak and a damaged economy. Also: These weren't small podunk hospitals, these were the Advent Health's, Baptist Health, Cleveland Clinic size health systems, it's not a lack of money or trying that this all went down, it was a real crisis.
- guscost 6y ago
  You are making a good argument for the initial lockdown, not this continuing insanity. We should have started challenge trials on day one, I would have been first in line to try this new respiratory virus (and I did sign up to participate in one project that has still not been approved). From there we could have evaluated the risk to different groups, and started building population immunity in the best way for overall public health. Instead, we went down the most cowardly and destructive path possible, and it is a travesty. The people who led us here should be sacked.
  - necrotic_comp 6y ago
    "Continuing insanity" ? It's completely absurd to say that we can achieve controlled herd immunity when a) we don't know how much of the population is required to be infected to achieve it and b) we don't know how long immunity lasts and c) the serology tests are not completely accurate. In order to beat this thing back, we need to use the tools our ancestors did - quarantine and isolation - and complement them with modern strategies. In the US, we still have approximately 40k additional infections a day, and we're drowning in a sea of comorbidities. Re-opening to let however many people die so we can get back to normal isn't a strategy, it's giving up.
    - guscost 6y ago
      I just described a modern strategy that includes tactical quarantine and isolation! What we have done instead (spew absurd panic from every mainstream institution for the better part of a year, while sending kids home from school and COVID patients into nursing homes) is a disgrace. More about the modern strategy that we could have used instead: https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA
      - necrotic_comp 6y ago
        It's the "tactical" part I have a problem with - from what we're seeing, we don't have enough information about the disease to make an informed decision. E.g. the drastic differences in infection rates and mortality in different countries in Europe with nominally similar strategies gives us an indication that there is a lot more to learn. Additionally, we don't know the long term consequences of this thing yet - it's possible that it's going to cause chronic issues a lot of people who would've otherwise been healthy.
nullstyle 6y ago
"Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities." It's so sad to see this narrative take hold even here. But hey, at least you got the technical description correct, and it's only us fatties who are running the risk, so let's just discount the 95% of the deaths, right? The perspectives here, in my opinion, are incredibly skewed when you remember we're supposed to be a society whose goal is liberty and justice for all. This teacher needn't have died: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article245668265.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/artic...
- jaywalk 6y ago
  And you've taken the opposite, emotionally-charged route.
  - nullstyle 6y ago
    In my opinion, I've taken no route. I've pointed out the dismissals in their stance. I agree that the route we've taken is bad, I agree things should change and this study should inform those changes. However, I'm not going to minimize the death nor avoid the suffering. I'm at least explicit in my belief that we should be minimizing death as much as possible, fairness to the owners be damned.
    - jaywalk 6y ago
      Minimizing death as much as possible isn't and cannot ever be a goal. There's a balance that must be struck.
      - nullstyle 6y ago
        Why not?
        dahdum 6y ago
        Virtually every decision we make as a society is a trade off, from highway speed limits to school funding. We never optimize for the lowest possible risk of death.
guscost 6y ago
Very well argued. Here’s my rant from May. I also go waaay out on a limb to claim that this episode will be the final nail in the coffin of what we know today as “science”, so YMMV: https://guscost.com/2020/05/12/pandemic-woo/ https://guscost.com/2020/05/12/pandemic-woo/
tasty_freeze 6y ago
> Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities. I thought the figure was 6% had no comorbidity, which would be ~12K people. One figure I'd like to see is what percentage of people don't have some comorbidity. I mean, 1/3 of the US population is obsese and another 1/3 are overweight. 10% or so of us are diabetics. 20% or whatever smoke. I suspect it is rather high, which would mean your 6% statistic isn't as indicative as you might think.
newacct583 6y ago
> Sweden, which had a much more liberal policy I don't see how that follows. In fact the bulk of US cases and deaths right now are happening in states with limited mitigations very much along the lines of what was happening in Sweden. The US has stricter rules in some areas, and most of those (in particular the northeast) are showing much better control of the outbreak than Sweden.
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all have a total covid-19 death rate that's more than 2x that of Sweden. Currently, the average daily cases is 5x higher in Rhode Island than in Sweden, 3x higher in Connecticut than in Sweden, and 2x higher in Massachusetts than in Sweden. The current daily covid-19 death rate in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island is higher than in Sweden. How the hell can you claim that that is "much better control" with a straight face? (And I didn't even need to bring up NY or NJ to find US states in the northeast that are doing much worse than Sweden.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/connecticut/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/connecticut/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/massachusetts/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/massachusetts/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/rhode-island/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/rhode-island/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
iso1631 6y ago
> Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities How many Americans have other comorbidities? Especially Americans over the age of 55?

bearjaws 6y ago

Working in hospitals, nobody will say it was a gross over-reaction. Everyone agrees we didn't delay the breakout long enough to get the right staff, equipment, and materials in place to treat, resulting in tens of thousands of additional deaths. Here in Florida when cases spiked, patients were having to be sedated with drugs not originally meant for sedation, due to etomidate, ketamine, and propofol supplies running out. There was no PPE, everyone was reusing masks and gowns. Doctors got sick, some died. Everyone was working 60+ hours and I know many hospitals were offering $100+/hr with multi thousand dollar bonuses per week to get staff to come in. Staff still turned down these offers, due to the stress. Advent Health setup a dedicated hospital for COVID in every major city to try and efficiently use PPE, they were quickly overwhelmed and the covid patient's flooded every hospital, resulting in even less PPE availability. One ICU nurse I know summed it up best "We went from working 2-3 patients that each had one problem, to work 5-8 patients, each one with a myriad of problems. I want to go back to the simple patients, I have to code patients several times a week now." Sure maybe if our government was effective we could have come up with a better plan, but implementing a "segregation" of elderly from the general population simply wasn't going to happen. The efforts to "lower the curve" were 100% necessary and didn't go far enough or last long enough. Now we get the worst of everything, mass death, continuing outbreak and a damaged economy. Also: These weren't small podunk hospitals, these were the Advent Health's, Baptist Health, Cleveland Clinic size health systems, it's not a lack of money or trying that this all went down, it was a real crisis.

guscost 6y ago
You are making a good argument for the initial lockdown, not this continuing insanity. We should have started challenge trials on day one, I would have been first in line to try this new respiratory virus (and I did sign up to participate in one project that has still not been approved). From there we could have evaluated the risk to different groups, and started building population immunity in the best way for overall public health. Instead, we went down the most cowardly and destructive path possible, and it is a travesty. The people who led us here should be sacked.
- necrotic_comp 6y ago
  "Continuing insanity" ? It's completely absurd to say that we can achieve controlled herd immunity when a) we don't know how much of the population is required to be infected to achieve it and b) we don't know how long immunity lasts and c) the serology tests are not completely accurate. In order to beat this thing back, we need to use the tools our ancestors did - quarantine and isolation - and complement them with modern strategies. In the US, we still have approximately 40k additional infections a day, and we're drowning in a sea of comorbidities. Re-opening to let however many people die so we can get back to normal isn't a strategy, it's giving up.
  - guscost 6y ago
    I just described a modern strategy that includes tactical quarantine and isolation! What we have done instead (spew absurd panic from every mainstream institution for the better part of a year, while sending kids home from school and COVID patients into nursing homes) is a disgrace. More about the modern strategy that we could have used instead: https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA
    - necrotic_comp 6y ago
      It's the "tactical" part I have a problem with - from what we're seeing, we don't have enough information about the disease to make an informed decision. E.g. the drastic differences in infection rates and mortality in different countries in Europe with nominally similar strategies gives us an indication that there is a lot more to learn. Additionally, we don't know the long term consequences of this thing yet - it's possible that it's going to cause chronic issues a lot of people who would've otherwise been healthy.

nullstyle 6y ago

"Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities." It's so sad to see this narrative take hold even here. But hey, at least you got the technical description correct, and it's only us fatties who are running the risk, so let's just discount the 95% of the deaths, right? The perspectives here, in my opinion, are incredibly skewed when you remember we're supposed to be a society whose goal is liberty and justice for all. This teacher needn't have died: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article245668265.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/artic...

jaywalk 6y ago
And you've taken the opposite, emotionally-charged route.
- nullstyle 6y ago
  In my opinion, I've taken no route. I've pointed out the dismissals in their stance. I agree that the route we've taken is bad, I agree things should change and this study should inform those changes. However, I'm not going to minimize the death nor avoid the suffering. I'm at least explicit in my belief that we should be minimizing death as much as possible, fairness to the owners be damned.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    Minimizing death as much as possible isn't and cannot ever be a goal. There's a balance that must be struck.
    - nullstyle 6y ago
      Why not?
      - dahdum 6y ago
        Virtually every decision we make as a society is a trade off, from highway speed limits to school funding. We never optimize for the lowest possible risk of death.

guscost 6y ago

Very well argued. Here’s my rant from May. I also go waaay out on a limb to claim that this episode will be the final nail in the coffin of what we know today as “science”, so YMMV: https://guscost.com/2020/05/12/pandemic-woo/ https://guscost.com/2020/05/12/pandemic-woo/

tasty_freeze 6y ago

> Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities. I thought the figure was 6% had no comorbidity, which would be ~12K people. One figure I'd like to see is what percentage of people don't have some comorbidity. I mean, 1/3 of the US population is obsese and another 1/3 are overweight. 10% or so of us are diabetics. 20% or whatever smoke. I suspect it is rather high, which would mean your 6% statistic isn't as indicative as you might think.

newacct583 6y ago

> Sweden, which had a much more liberal policy I don't see how that follows. In fact the bulk of US cases and deaths right now are happening in states with limited mitigations very much along the lines of what was happening in Sweden. The US has stricter rules in some areas, and most of those (in particular the northeast) are showing much better control of the outbreak than Sweden.

henrikschroder 6y ago
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all have a total covid-19 death rate that's more than 2x that of Sweden. Currently, the average daily cases is 5x higher in Rhode Island than in Sweden, 3x higher in Connecticut than in Sweden, and 2x higher in Massachusetts than in Sweden. The current daily covid-19 death rate in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island is higher than in Sweden. How the hell can you claim that that is "much better control" with a straight face? (And I didn't even need to bring up NY or NJ to find US states in the northeast that are doing much worse than Sweden.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/connecticut/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/connecticut/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/massachusetts/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/massachusetts/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/rhode-island/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/rhode-island/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

iso1631 6y ago

> Only around ~6k did not have other comorbidities How many Americans have other comorbidities? Especially Americans over the age of 55?