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I will need proof that 5% of people would die if they didn't receive care. The hospitalization rate is not at 5% in my state, so on the face of it that number i

I will need proof that 5% of people would die if they didn't receive care. The hospitalization rate is not at 5% in my state, so on the face of it that number is bunk. And I doubt anyone would seriously contend that every hospitalization would be death but for hospitalization. But lets take your numbers as they are. It wouldn't be 5% of all infections, or 5% of all severe infections. It would be 5% of all infections _above hospital capacity_. Health systems wouldn't disappear, they would just not take in more folks, or triage more aggressively. I know you address this in your comment, but it is important to note. Because it greatly changes the emotional appeal for your emotional argument to spell it out. Don't bring long-covid in to this discussion, there is no real hard evidence that it even exists AND is an artifact of covid.

LatteLazy 6y ago
That's a very fair question, I won't pretend my numbers are precise or even accurate because (amazingly to me) we've done a terrible job of estimating/measuring and communicating these basic numbers /rant. I'm going off: Positive tests in the UK yesterday: 52,618 https://covidgraph.com/ https://covidgraph.com/ Patients admitted yesterday: 3867 https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare That's 7.3%. It's gone up since I last looked, about 1month ago. But I wouldn't call it a true rate as there are plenty of people not getting tested. If half the people are asymptomatic or don't get tested for whatever reason, that gets you 3.6%. There aren't many beds left so I don't think they're admitting many people who don't need it. I'd be happier discussing a range of anything from 2 to 10% because who the fuck knows. Fair? To address the marginal vs absolute point, again you are quite right. I'd actually go a bit further: good triaging would be a bit brutal but it would also mean the majority of deaths were old or otherwise ill. There is a concept in UK medicine called quality adjusted life years (QALY). This tries to mathematically account for "obviously you save a young healthy person with kids over an old, otherwise ill person". Death rates don't incorporate that at all. I'd like to see what the QALY figures are like for covid. I don't think they're public though. A 1.2 R number (the figure being used for London, again a wild estimate...) gives you a 3% daily growth rate. That means number of infected doubles every 23 days. So assuming we stick with just current measures (reopen schools), your death rate will tend to the hospitalisation rate on a 23 day half-life. Assuming 5% hospitalisation rate (again, try it with your own numbers, I'm not wedded to 5%), the death rate will be 2.75% around Feb 7th. Then 3.5% around March 3rd. Then 3.88% around March 26th etc. I don't know what will actually happen. And I'd add that trying to extrapolate anything exponential is a fools game. So who knows? I'm merely pointing out there are very possible, very severe outcomes.

LatteLazy 6y ago

That's a very fair question, I won't pretend my numbers are precise or even accurate because (amazingly to me) we've done a terrible job of estimating/measuring and communicating these basic numbers /rant. I'm going off: Positive tests in the UK yesterday: 52,618 https://covidgraph.com/ https://covidgraph.com/ Patients admitted yesterday: 3867 https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare That's 7.3%. It's gone up since I last looked, about 1month ago. But I wouldn't call it a true rate as there are plenty of people not getting tested. If half the people are asymptomatic or don't get tested for whatever reason, that gets you 3.6%. There aren't many beds left so I don't think they're admitting many people who don't need it. I'd be happier discussing a range of anything from 2 to 10% because who the fuck knows. Fair? To address the marginal vs absolute point, again you are quite right. I'd actually go a bit further: good triaging would be a bit brutal but it would also mean the majority of deaths were old or otherwise ill. There is a concept in UK medicine called quality adjusted life years (QALY). This tries to mathematically account for "obviously you save a young healthy person with kids over an old, otherwise ill person". Death rates don't incorporate that at all. I'd like to see what the QALY figures are like for covid. I don't think they're public though. A 1.2 R number (the figure being used for London, again a wild estimate...) gives you a 3% daily growth rate. That means number of infected doubles every 23 days. So assuming we stick with just current measures (reopen schools), your death rate will tend to the hospitalisation rate on a 23 day half-life. Assuming 5% hospitalisation rate (again, try it with your own numbers, I'm not wedded to 5%), the death rate will be 2.75% around Feb 7th. Then 3.5% around March 3rd. Then 3.88% around March 26th etc. I don't know what will actually happen. And I'd add that trying to extrapolate anything exponential is a fools game. So who knows? I'm merely pointing out there are very possible, very severe outcomes.