Coronavirus

[Stavros]

For anyone interestd, I have posted my thoughts on the USA's temporary withdrawal of funding for the WHO in a different thread, which is here-
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...70#post1925070

[broncofan]

Another country that has not been doing a good job is Sweden. Their testing is insufficient, as you can see from their case fatality rate, and their deaths are starting to spike. Today they had 170 deaths which per capita would be the equivalent of 5450 deaths in the U.S. I think they're making a mistake by not shutting down like everyone else.

This article is from yesterday so it doesn't include today's totals. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/m...iclekey=230288

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

[blackchubby38]

The one thing many people were worried about with these stay at home orders, were politicians over stepping their bounds and taking things too far. That's what's happening in Michigan with their governor and people took to the streets in their cars to protest her actions.

http://www.woodtv.com/health/coronav...lansing-today/

[broncofan]

The one thing many people were worried about with these stay at home orders, were politicians over stepping their bounds and taking things too far. That's what's happening in Michigan with their governor and people took to the streets in their cars to protest her actions.

http://www.woodtv.com/health/coronav...lansing-today/

There are people in this article who believe that fishing is an essential activity in a pandemic, and that washing your hands alone will prevent you from getting a respiratory disease spread through droplets that people cough.

The state of Michigan had 153 deaths today and at the rate this country is going we'd have well over a million a year w/o distancing. We currently have 2347 today.

Anyone who believes a stay at home order at this point in Michigan, only three weeks from the initial order, is an excessive measure is not someone who thinks the economy should be slowly reopened based on the advice of epidemiologists and with at least three to four times our current testing capacity. It's possible if you cherrypick public health experts you can find one who doesn't think relaxing distancing while you're at the top of the curve would be a disaster, but most, including Scott Gottlieb, who is Trump's previous FDA head, think we need a lot more testing and the ability to conduct tracing so that we can become stricter as soon as community spread begins.

Some quotes from the article:

“I just don’t see why I can’t take my kids out fishing. I don’t see why that’s not essential. We are old enough to wash our hands, be safe about it and use some common sense — that’s all it takes,”

A business owner from Hudsonville said, “I think a lot of it is hype. Just wash your hands and stay safe.”

[broncofan]

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/14/212190...nomy-recession

Here's an interview with Scott Gottlieb. As I said, he was a Trump appointee, worked for the American Enterprise Institute, and seems to want people to get back to work. Yet his plan seems pretty cautious and contingent on our ability to prevent community spread. Do you really think they should unwind stay at home orders in Michigan now as opposed to 2-3 weeks from now?

[filghy2]

Another country that has not been doing a good job is Sweden. Their testing is insufficient, as you can see from their case fatality rate, and their deaths are starting to spike. Today they had 170 deaths which per capita would be the equivalent of 5450 deaths in the U.S. I think they're making a mistake by not shutting down like everyone else.

It's strange that they have done so little testing. If you are going to pursue this strategy of not shutting down and relying on people behaving responsibly then surely you should be ramping up the testing and contact-tracing.

[filghy2]

Anyone who believes a stay at home order at this point in Michigan, only three weeks from the initial order, is an excessive measure is not someone who thinks the economy should be slowly reopened based on the advice of epidemiologists and with at least three to four times our current testing capacity.

Previous generations came through the Great Depression and World War II - essentially 16 years of hardship because the economy did not properly recover before the war. How would these people have coped with that?

This virus is like a perfect storm that is exposing so many weaknesses in the US, part from the obvious one at the top:
- excessive focus on individual rights and free enterprise to the exclusion of the public good
- dysfunctional hyper-partisan politics
- systematic erosion of government capacity
- inadequate social safety nets
- poor health system
- denigration of scientific expertise

[Stavros]

Previous generations came through the Great Depression and World War II - essentially 16 years of hardship because the economy did not properly recover before the war. How would these people have coped with that?

This virus is like a perfect storm that is exposing so many weaknesses in the US, part from the obvious one at the top:
- excessive focus on individual rights and free enterprise to the exclusion of the public good
- dysfunctional hyper-partisan politics
- systematic erosion of government capacity
- inadequate social safety nets
- poor health system
- denigration of scientific expertise

"- excessive focus on individual rights and free enterprise to the exclusion of the public good
- dysfunctional hyper-partisan politics
- systematic erosion of government capacity
- inadequate social safety nets
- poor health system
- denigration of scientific expertise"

-Chapters for a book! Maybe you should write it? I would read it.

[filghy2]

Chapters for a book! Maybe you should write it? I would read it.

I'm sure we'll be seeing many books on this theme in the period ahead.

I'm not sure I have the perseverance to write a whole book. I've managed to write papers of 30-40 pages in the past, and that was quite enough for me.

[broncofan]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/...-to-treatment/

It looks like some data from the first clinical trials for Remdesivir might come out soon. The doctor at U Chicago has said that out of 113 patients enrolled with severe disease only two have died. I make some assumptions here but if our hospitalization rate is about 20% and our cfr is 4%, would you expect a fatality rate close to 20% for people with serious illness? Maybe I'm wrong. Don't want to peddle false hope, but we'll see what the data says.

I'm also curious if there are other designs that check whether it's effective in preventing people with mild disease from progressing to severe disease. Gilead's stock is up, but that just means people read the same articles I did.