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2020-03-21 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says
[Bloomberg] More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority.

After deaths from the virus reached more than 2,500, with a 150% increase in the past week, health authorities have been combing through data to provide clues to help combat the spread of the disease.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government is evaluating whether to extend a nationwide lockdown beyond the beginning of April, daily La Stampa reported Wednesday. Italy has more than 31,500 confirmed cases of the illness.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-21 07:55|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11136 views ]  Top

#1 Is it worth it?

We are now told daily by our policy makers that this induced depression will send the unemployment and bankruptcy and economic decline rates to levels that are only seen in wartime. This, in order to spare an overwhelmingly elderly population that suffers from pre-existing conditions. and that is therefore more than an order of magnitude more likely to succumb to this disease than young people, and many times more likely than people under 60.

Before you reach for the mots du jour - "exponential", "pandemic," or attack yours truly (I myself like most Rantburgers am on the cusp of entering the above risk group and don't say any of this lightly) -- ask yourself: are the deaths and misery that will surely result from actually destroying the economy for not a week or two but now, possibly, for YEARS?

Is it really worth destroying the hopes of, and sending into the stratosphere the suicide rate among, a BILLION people -- is prolonging the lifespan of a tiny % of a % of that number, of elderly folks?

I'm not trying to be needlessly contrarian and not snarking or attacking anyone. I ask: Is this wise policy? Do our leaders really know what they're doing?

Are we sure we're doing the right thing?
Posted by Lex 2020-03-21 08:31||   2020-03-21 08:31|| Front Page Top

#2 60+ year old owner of business soon to be forced to close by Gov. Dewine.
I stand with Lex.
Posted by Thimp Clusort2035 2020-03-21 08:39||   2020-03-21 08:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Groovy, the supermen plague.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 08:44||   2020-03-21 08:44|| Front Page Top

#4 Grom, EC, anyone: please look at the data compiled by Italy's Health Ministry from an 18% sample of the records. 48.5% of those who've died in Italy had three or more pre-existing conditions.

Nearly HALF were already on the verge of dying, and nearly all the remainder had at least one serious medical condition already. Overwhelmingly a case of a flu-like virus killing elderly, ill people.

There is no realistic scenario in which this thing kills more than a thousand or so Americans who are not elderly and suffering from serious medical preconditions.
Posted by Lex 2020-03-21 08:47||   2020-03-21 08:47|| Front Page Top

#5 Yes Herb, I mean Lex.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 08:49||   2020-03-21 08:49|| Front Page Top

#6 Perhaps grom is the new Herb?
Posted by Thimp Clusort2035 2020-03-21 08:56||   2020-03-21 08:56|| Front Page Top

#7 I am waiting for someone to explain how this will end. When there are no more new cases? When deaths fall below some number? When everyone not sick has starved to death?

We have guys planning (and leaking) for an 18-month shutdown; who is planning for the re-opening?
Posted by Bobby 2020-03-21 09:06||   2020-03-21 09:06|| Front Page Top

#8 Are we sure we're doing the right thing?

You mean the massive overreaction? In that case, no we aren't doing the right thing. We're gonna look back on this soon and realize what a bunch of massively overprotective assholes most of our politicians & supposed 'leaders' are.

Also - please stop comparing other commenters to Herb. You think that helps in any way? I don't.
Posted by Raj 2020-03-21 09:06||   2020-03-21 09:06|| Front Page Top

#9 Raj, I would expect an accountant to understand compound interest (exponential growth) and to understand that once medical resources are overstretched, young and healthy people - like the ones gamboling on Florida beach now - will start dying.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 09:12||   2020-03-21 09:12|| Front Page Top

#10 Virginia police investigating teens coughing on produce for social media
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 09:24||   2020-03-21 09:24|| Front Page Top

#11 I won't do to G. what he's been doing here.

I mean, I really didn't want to go there - I don't know Grom or any of you, to be honest, and nothing we say here amounts to a hill of beans, as the man once said.

This isn't a pissing match. This is about changing a false narrative and calling out an unfolding global catastrophe in which our presumed cure will be far deadlier to many more people than the illness would be.

Despite all the hysteria, the empirical reality is simply overwhelming. Reality: not bullshit journalism and not speculation about exponential this or that or hypothetical models but actual case data that's been carefully analyzed by serious medical experts here and around the world.

This scrupulously-collected and analyzed, official Italian data confirms, in spades, what should have been obvious to policy makers from the Diamond Princess case.

It's simply not that lethal to the general population. It just ain't.

Remember, the Princess was a cruise ship - a demographic that is heavily skewed toward the elderly: ca. 33% over the age of 60, per industry data, vs only about 20% for the population overall.

Even there, in that ideal incubation environment, the Case Fatality Rate per WHO and CDC was less than 1 in 100, and over 80% of those who were exposed, for 25 days (!) to these ideal incubator conditions, on a quarantined ship, were likely immune.

Apply the math correctly - revise downward from the Diamond Princess infection rate:
- down from 17% to 8% if applied correctly to remove the extreme elderly population & elderly morbidity rate skews;
- then down again by at least 80%, maybe 90%, to eliminate the effects of confining people for 25 days in what a virologist called an ideal incubation environment

... and this actual, hard, empirical data indicates there is simply no way can this thing kill more than, tops, 100k Americans and most likely somewhere between 17k and 34k.

To quote a famous Italian man of science against superstition,
Eppur si muove.
Posted by Lex 2020-03-21 09:38||   2020-03-21 09:38|| Front Page Top

#12 Thank you, g(r)om, you condescending prick. Are we at / past the point of overstretching our medical resources (however that's defined)? I don't think so.

Albeit a new one, this is a flu virus. I'm fine with 'wash your hands' and I had the social distancing shit down forty years ago, but I'm with Lex in this belief - this is a massive overreaction, and I know a lot of local businesses are gonna go tits up because of this overreaction, which is what this is.

We'll agree to disagree, or you can just fuck off.
Posted by Raj 2020-03-21 09:40||   2020-03-21 09:40|| Front Page Top

#13 ^So, you don't know what a compound interest means?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 09:48||   2020-03-21 09:48|| Front Page Top

#14 Once a condescending prick, always a condescending prick.
Posted by Raj 2020-03-21 10:02||   2020-03-21 10:02|| Front Page Top

#15 Coronavirus cases doubling faster in the U.S. than any other country, report says

Probably a consequence of more tests becoming available: it can't be because USA has more people who can't wait for a few weeks until a cure (probably several) is found and treat any (temp) restrictions as the abolition of Constitution.

p.s. Raj, mi hermano, didn't you tell us a few weeks ago that you have a serious heart (?) condition. What do you think will happen to you if you caught Wuhan cold?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 10:14||   2020-03-21 10:14|| Front Page Top

#16 Jesus fucking Christ people. Take a deep breath (6 feet away from others) and calm the fuck down.

Some places are being hit very hard and it isn't the only the old getting it. Others not so much. We just don't know and what we are doing to shut things down has been used for thousands of years to help combat plague.

Trump just declared NY a disaster area and is sending in the Army. Here in Castle Rock it is just annoying AF. Latest from Tim Pool.
Posted by DarthVader 2020-03-21 10:43||   2020-03-21 10:43|| Front Page Top

#17 Coronavirus cases doubling faster in the U.S. than any other country, report says

That's a consequence of 10 times more tests being performed. As more test are done, the rate of positive tests is dropping.
Posted by Spike Hupush2094 2020-03-21 10:46||   2020-03-21 10:46|| Front Page Top

#18 That's what I said.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 10:48||   2020-03-21 10:48|| Front Page Top

#19 China had an exponential curve - until it didn't.

No, I don't trust their data either, but the FedEx CEO with 970 employees in Wuhan seemed to believe it, (interviewed on Fox News a couple of days ago) saying 80% of heavy industry and 60% of other stuff was up and running.

A lot of conflicting data and stories out there.
Posted by Bobby 2020-03-21 10:55||   2020-03-21 10:55|| Front Page Top

#20 ^I posted an article two days ago, says it's all Potemkin village. Fits with expelling journalists.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 10:56||   2020-03-21 10:56|| Front Page Top

#21 My observation is government is way overreacting by shutting down large parts of the economy.

Instead, individuals must take anti-transmission protocols like wearing masks and gloves in public to halt transmission to them. Even wear Tyvek bunny suits at work if that is what will halt the spread. Don't hardly see any of that where I live and people congregate, even at crowded grocery stores.

Shutting down work for people (who are mostly in lower tier jobs) until summer can't work since they don't have the savings to tide them over. Masks, gloves and personal precautions, not killing the economy will get us through this.

Over 70 and heart or respiratory problems? Stay home.

Posted by Spike Hupush2094 2020-03-21 10:59||   2020-03-21 10:59|| Front Page Top

#22 Oh lord.

That MITRE report doesn't even indicate source data, let alone show the data, let alone tell us whether they REMOVED from the tallies those people whose condition improved. And of course this doubling is skewed by starting from a minuscule base, plus better testing equipment, which leads of course to the inevitable qualifier: it's a meaningless data set.

As they themselves admit:
" We believe that COVID-19 cases are currently underrepresented in large part due to our current limited testing capability and the multi-day period of asymptomatic infectivity associated with the COVID-19 pathogen."

Ok, so none of this data is accurate. How on earth can you calculate a meaningful trendline when - as you yourselves admit - the very method of collecting data is inconsistent, varying not just over time but from place to place?

Who would put out such a data set? How is this at all helpful?

Then they insert this qualifier:
"these values are very sensitive to starting assumptions and are trailing statistics, and should not be used to extrapolate forward values.

"In addition, the many NPIs being implemented around the country in recent days should, over time, have some beneficial impact on doubling times in the United States."

Please stop extrapolating from inconsistent, inaccurate data.

MITRE and bullshit journalists make money off of spreading fear with sloppy data handling and unjustified conclusions. We should not repeat the error.
Posted by Lex 2020-03-21 11:01||   2020-03-21 11:01|| Front Page Top

#23 Everyone reading this has a preexisting condition. Good Christ...
Posted by 49 Pan 2020-03-21 11:51||   2020-03-21 11:51|| Front Page Top

#24 How does this end? A better question is, what does this look like in five years? My guess:

• We now have a third class of RNA virus endemic in the human population: corona on top of cold and flu.

• It is endemic, i.e. it never goes away.

• It is an RNA virus, so it mutates rapidly and new strains emerge every few years like the flu and cold. We will produce vaccines, but they will never be effective enough to provide true herd immunity -- like the flu.

• This strain seems to be somewhere between five and twenty times more deadly than the stains of flu currently in circulation. So for the next few years, we will see five to twenty times the rate of early mortality in at-risk populations.

• The higher levels of mortality will be seen when the number of seriously ill exceed the capacity of the healthcare system. This is the point a lot of folks keep missing. When the numbers are within the capacity of the healthcare system, you see mortality rates like you see in Japan and Singapore. When the capacity is exceeded, it's 1918, baby.

Finally, the way you view this depends on whether you see the world through the tragic or therapeutic lens. If you are of a tragic mind, mortality is a constant. When death comes, it comes. Face it as bravely as you can. One of the therapeutae can perhaps explain that frame of mind better than I ever could.
Posted by 11A5S 2020-03-21 11:55||   2020-03-21 11:55|| Front Page Top

#25 #24 Corona is cold.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 11:58||   2020-03-21 11:58|| Front Page Top

#26 Paging Carl Linnaeus. Carl Linnaeus please come to the white courtesy phone.
Posted by 11A5S 2020-03-21 12:04||   2020-03-21 12:04|| Front Page Top

#27 How does it end? My guess:
(1) Most everybody will be infected at some point and "herd immunity" to that strain will arise in the population; and
(2) Many susceptible people will die, many more people than in the "Golden Age of Penicillin" that we are seeing the end of.

It sucks to look back at a Golden Age and *sigh* knowing that it is over. Maybe, just maybe, our medical research can pull a new rabbit out of a hat in the future.
Posted by magpie 2020-03-21 12:07||   2020-03-21 12:07|| Front Page Top

#28 #26 If the distinction wasn't important you could use influenza vaccine for current coronavirus
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 12:15||   2020-03-21 12:15|| Front Page Top

#29 Coronavirus cases doubling faster in the U.S. than any other country, report says

That's a consequence of 10 times more tests being performed. As more test are done, the rate of positive tests is dropping.

Exactly. Remember there is going to be a bit of lag between between identifying all the people already sick and brand new cases. While that happens a lot of fear tickets are going to be sold.
Posted by swksvolFF 2020-03-21 12:26||   2020-03-21 12:26|| Front Page Top

#30 The damage being done to the economy and the mindset of Americans is going to be difficult to undo...and for what? We're not Italy...we're not China or Iran. Our demographics and lifestyles are nothing like theirs. And we already have promising treatments (is it too soon to call it a cure?).
Posted by Crusader 2020-03-21 12:35||   2020-03-21 12:35|| Front Page Top

#31 /\ And we already have promising treatments (is it too soon to call it a cure?

Yes, entirely 'too soon.' The presidential election is looming and the Trump MAGA economy is still not destroyed.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-21 12:37||   2020-03-21 12:37|| Front Page Top

#32 We're not Italy

People shit on sidewalks in Italy?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 12:52||   2020-03-21 12:52|| Front Page Top

#33 My wife is a nurse. She is certain she had it this winter. I suspect she is not alone in that. We need a test to see who has the anti-bodies.

My guess of how this plays out (no insider knowledge besides the nurse connection):

(1) During quarantine as we test more people the numbers go up, and then they plummet.
(2) Tests come online to test for anti-bodies and we find the number of people that have already had it is massive. Everyone comes down as they re-estimate the death rate to be really low.
(3) We continue work on a vaccine and such to be ready for the second spike as cold weather returns. This is as much about calming people as it is about actually vaccine.
(4) As a society we trust the media less, Trump more, and work at home and home schooling really get pushed into the mainstream. Robots start to take industrial jobs and folks don't complain about it, and that guaranteed wage thing starts to gain traction as a lot of folks become unemployed and unemployable and terrified about it.
Posted by ruprecht 2020-03-21 14:21||   2020-03-21 14:21|| Front Page Top

#34 home schooling really get pushed into the mainstream

Which may be the biggest, and most significant, outcome of the crisis. Even bigger than, h/t TW, preparing us for a real plague.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 14:26||   2020-03-21 14:26|| Front Page Top

#35 How does it end?

Posted by Skidmark 2020-03-21 14:35||   2020-03-21 14:35|| Front Page Top

#36 #20 Here's the article I've mentioned.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-21 17:04||   2020-03-21 17:04|| Front Page Top

#37  Lex 2020-03-21 08:47

Without measures, the exponential curve will be brutal. You'll have tens of millions infected within a very short time frame, and we know that at least 10-15% will need intensive care.

No country is able to cope with that.
Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-21 17:27||   2020-03-21 17:27|| Front Page Top

#38 https://www.pressdemocrat.com/multimedia/10841359-181/why-outbreaks-like-coronavirusspread-exponentially
Posted by bbrewer126 2020-03-21 17:48||   2020-03-21 17:48|| Front Page Top

#39 The simplest thing is to tell anyone under the age of 60 with no risky conditions like COPD to go back to work, and get the nation back on its feet. Pay the elders to stay home until a cure is widespread, its ultimately cheaper than hospitalizing them and losing their income in years to come.

It will take guts to make that call, real leadership. But its going to be time to get America back to work, and the states and businesses that do this first will be the ones to boom.

Aside from that, those under least threat will likely develop only the mild version, and then become immune, giving the entire population "herd immunity". Based on the stats in S Korea, the only real population with tight testing and control, the fatality rate is less than 0.05% for <55 healthy people, especially non-smokers, and women.

Time to face the facts.
Posted by Marilyn Tojo7566 2020-03-21 19:45||   2020-03-21 19:45|| Front Page Top

#40 At lease make the people who manufacture toilet paper go back to work, my god, the wife and I are seriously inconvenienced at the idea of using paper napkins....for this indignity alone we need use a small grade nuke on the city of Wuhan.
Posted by NoMoreBS 2020-03-21 20:24||   2020-03-21 20:24|| Front Page Top

#41 What Marilyn Tojo said. Young (<60) people need to get to back to work, pronto. Wear masks if necessary, keep your social distance wherever possible. But take care of the elderly and get the bulk of the working-age population back on its feet, and working.

S.t. tells me Trump, alone among our political class, would have the guts to make that call.
We shall see.
Posted by Lex 2020-03-21 23:40||   2020-03-21 23:40|| Front Page Top

10:56 Skidmark
10:25 DarthVader
10:20 Matt
10:17 DarthVader
10:16 Matt
10:05 746
10:01 746
09:59 746
09:53 DarthVader
09:53 Besoeker
09:43 Warthog
09:35 The Walking Unvaxed
09:16 Warthog
09:11 The Walking Unvaxed
09:04 Skidmark
09:00 Mercutio
08:58 Mercutio
08:53 Mercutio
08:33 Skidmark
08:22 Skidmark
08:00 Anguper Hupomosing9418
07:58 Anguper Hupomosing9418
07:57 Anguper Hupomosing9418
07:52 Skidmark
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