Will this end up being the pandemic that cried wolf?

[monsterkitty]

I think public busses in my metro are not needed during a pandemic. So it's easy. Drive yourself or work from home.

So those families who live in food deserts, such as the one I teach in, shouldn't be allowed to go to the grocery store? They don't have cars and the rely on the bus. I'm guessing more than a few of these parents are also essential workers in low paying jobs that still have to rely on a bus system that isn't the greatest. Should they just stay home instead of going to their custodial jobs at the hospital, or their CNA jobs?

Yes. Not in people but between people in the environment.

So the virus is going to be miraculously killed by the sunlight when it leaves the mouth of one person and before it enters the nose of the person they're standing next to on the beach or in a crowd?

 

[Dan Murphy]

In Sweden-
1) no quarantine
2) low death rates
3) no crisis in ICU’s even though less per capital beds than US
4) population has more widespread immunity going forward

Sweden made smart decisions that were very unpopular with the western international media. The western media (and their favored “experts”) predicted calamity in Sweden that just didn’t happen. I don’t think there is any question that apocalyptic forecasts are dear to the heart of the media.

In recent history a new significant Coronavirus mutation appeared say once per decade and novel significant flu mutation less frequently. The Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, and H1N1 come to mind in last 100 years. The pandemic flu’s though attack younger age groups including children. With global population still growing and urbanization ongoing at an increased rate more and more people are living closer and closer together so ever increasing opportunities for these viruses to mutate and transmit.

If you liked this stay at home period you are fortunate since likely not long before the next significant viral mutation arises and transmits. A reasonable expectation is that they will appear more frequently in the future.

Sweden's death rate per million population is 27% greater than the US. Just a current statistic.

 

[ThistleMae]

I know first hand what this virus does to people. My wife has it. She has a hard time breathing. Doing little things makes her out of breath. The worst part is there is nothing they can do to help her as there is no cure. Why so many think this is no big deal is beyond me.

That's my feeling about this virus. For folks who do get it badly, it's a horrible illness, just horrible. People can't breathe. It's like drowning!

 

[ThistleMae]

Not true.

First, the area under the curve is cases, not death.

If there were no treatment, then your statement might be true. However, the true point of flattening the curve is to keep cases below the critical level where they start to overwhelm the health care system. Having cases below this level, significantly decrease case-fatality rate, saving many lives even if the total number of people who get the illness is the same (your area under the curve).

Exactly, and it gives us more time to develop interventions that will work, and ultimately a vaccine.

 

[mjkacmom]

Exactly, and it gives us more time to develop interventions that will work, and ultimately a vaccine.

Plus create more tests, including those for antibodies, and supplies and equipment.

 

[godisney14]

In Sweden-
1) no quarantine
2) low death rates
3) no crisis in ICU’s even though less per capital beds than US
4) population has more widespread immunity going forward

1. Sweden does recommend voluntary self-quarantine for anyone with any cold or flu-like symptoms.
2. As mentioned by another poster, Sweden’s death per capita is actually higher than US.
3. Stockholm has set up temporary beds in anticipation of a rise in cases. They’re just not close to the peak yet.
4. How did you come to that conclusion? Very interested to hear your reasoning.

And Sweden is not just willy nilly. I’ve posted before on the measures they’ve taken. It’s similar to what other countries have done in the earlier stages.

• all high schools and colleges are online
• no gatherings of over 50 people
• closure of entertainment venues

and more, you can look it up.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

In Sweden-
1) no quarantine
2) low death rates
3) no crisis in ICU’s even though less per capital beds than US
4) population has more widespread immunity going forward

Sweden made smart decisions that were very unpopular with the western international media. The western media (and their favored “experts”) predicted calamity in Sweden that just didn’t happen. I don’t think there is any question that apocalyptic forecasts are dear to the heart of the media.

In recent history a new significant Coronavirus mutation appeared say once per decade and novel significant flu mutation less frequently. The Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, and H1N1 come to mind in last 100 years. The pandemic flu’s though attack younger age groups including children. With global population still growing and urbanization ongoing at an increased rate more and more people are living closer and closer together so ever increasing opportunities for these viruses to mutate and transmit.

If you liked this stay at home period you are fortunate since likely not long before the next significant viral mutation arises and transmits. A reasonable expectation is that they will appear more frequently in the future.

Let us look at Sweden's numbers compared to its similar nordic neighbors all of whom enacted stronger social distancing.

Deaths.
Sweden 1,540
Denmark 355
Norway 165
Finland 94

So Sweden, a country with roughly twice the population of Denmark, Norway, and Finland has over 4 times the deaths of the next closest country and almost 6 times the deaths of the other two combined. Whoops. And Denmark has a much greater population density than Sweden. 350 per Km squared for Denmark, 60 per KM squared for Sweden. 44 for Norway and 41 for Finland.

Cases
Sweden 14,385
Denmark 7,580
Norway 7,078
Finland 3,783

Sweden wasn't testing like the others. They weren't enacting social distancing like the others. And so far, it looks as if that bit em in the butt. And the numbers are even worse now than the last time someone tried to push the false narrative of Sweden. If there was anywhere not enacting social distancing would work it was Sweden. You might just get a wave from across the table instead of a hand shake there. For those that love their personal bubble, Sweden is the place for them. Don't even try the double cheek kissy kissy thing there. And if you sit down right next to someone at a transit stop, they probably will just get up and go to an empty area. People naturally keep a little distance there. They thought they were different and that given how they naturally practice more social distancing then most, it would be enough. But.... It didn't work. It wasn't good enough. And Sweden is paying the price. But Swedish authorities have done something. They've delivered a whole truckload of it's unfortunate and we're investigating. In fact here is some never before seen CW4D exclusive footage of a truck full of it's unfortunate and we're investigating.

 

[Heather07438]

It's hard to overcome bias without actively trying, especially when it comes to assessing our risk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_biashttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_biashttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-inertia-trap/201303/why-are-people-bad-evaluating-riskshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

 

[lisaviolet]

The 37,000 deaths as of right now (only 3 months into the crisis) are real.

The steps we took suck for all of us, but they WORKED. We didn't cry wolf. We fought back with precautions and it worked.

Yep, it kills me when people don't understand that the numbers are way below the projections because many countries, states and provinces actually took those exact projections seriously - with action.

It's astounding to me how often that fact is ignored.

Not only that but a lot of leaders screwed up by not acting sooner, and that can't be fixed now - just worked with going forward. Including my own.

You only have to look at places where they acted swiftly and aggressively. One without even a case in their sightline. And with intelligence. The numbers are ridiculously and wonderfully low in these places. It gives me faith that there are some leaders in this world that possess the skill of critical thinking.

 

[Heather07438]

Brazil is another country to follow.
Led by another very strong critic of shutdowns, he just recently fired the top health official because of differences in opinions of the shutdown. And this happened while the country is continuing to grow both daily new infection and death cases at incredible rates. No sign of flattening in near term looking at their charts.

I'm very worried for Brazil, and by extension South America. With unstable economies and power growing worse the past few years, this could really push those issues.

 

[bcla]

I think it similar to Y2K. Years spent, billions (maybe trillions) spent, preparing for Y2K. Nothing of much consequence happened at midnight. The 'cry wolf' folks say, "wow, all that time and money spent and nothing happened, what a waste." I say, "will we ever know what would have happened if those years and money were not spent preparing?" The answer is, no.

We can see what happened in Italy. The mitigation steps in the US did end up avoiding what happened there.

 

[TLSnell1981]

I've read the link that pahoben provided. My question is whether anyone legitimate has verified the slideshow attributed to DHS in the Yahoo article. Reading through it, it appears that someone has used a prior document and doctored it to try to back up their claims. Unfortunately, Yahoo news is not exactly well known for their reliability or taking care in vetting sources, so I maintain that the information about sunlight killing the virus is unlikely, at best. The fact that not one legitimate news source is using this is very telling.

It's hard to put much credence in many "news" sources nowadays. They seem to be few and far between...

 

[kdonnel]

Sweden's death rate per million population is 27% greater than the US. Just a current statistic.

They are at a very different point in the process then the US as well.

Give it a year and look at the numbers. That will be the interesting time. When we can compare apples to apples.

 

[pahoben]

1. Sweden does recommend voluntary self-quarantine for anyone with any cold or flu-like symptoms.
2. As mentioned by another poster, Sweden’s death per capita is actually higher than US.
3. Stockholm has set up temporary beds in anticipation of a rise in cases. They’re just not close to the peak yet.
4. How did you come to that conclusion? Very interested to hear your reasoning.

And Sweden is not just willy nilly. I’ve posted before on the measures they’ve taken. It’s similar to what other countries have done in the earlier stages.

• all high schools and colleges are online
• no gatherings of over 50 people
• closure of entertainment venues

and more, you can look it up.

I agree with your comments and believe these measures taken are mainly sensible and reasonable. High risk people self isolate and elementary children continue with school. Their new case rate is now low as is the death rate so if not at the peak really darn close. An ICU crisis at this point is very unlikely.

Their entire strategy was based on building natural immunity in the population. By allowing more face to face contact with respect to general quarantine they fostered more viral transmission and more natural immunity through antibody production. Once the population has sufficiently widespread immunity the virus will no longer transmit widely. They will no longer have to worry about another “wave” of this virus reaching pandemic conditions.

The death rate now is .015% so a far cry from the .7% model predictions.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

I think public busses in my metro are not needed during a pandemic. So it's easy. Drive yourself or work from home.

Lucky you. Not all people can afford a car.

 

[kdonnel]

Exactly, and it gives us more time to develop interventions that will work, and ultimately a vaccine.

Flattening the curve and social distancing potentially reduce the number of deaths if we practice both until the majority of the population are vaccinated or interventions are found. Is that a reasonable expectation to continue as is for 12 more months?

Otherwise we are just shifting when the deaths occur.

It will be interesting to look back a year or more from now and see if flattening the curve or herd immunity was the better approach.

 

[pahoben]

Flattening the curve and social distancing potentially reduce the number of deaths if we practice both until the majority of the population are vaccinated or interventions are found. Is that a reasonable expectation to continue as is for 12 more months?

Otherwise we are just shifting when the deaths occur.

It will be interesting to look back a year or more from now and see if flattening the curve or herd immunity was the better approach.

Vaccines are never a sure thing. I remember they tested the first vaccine for H1N1 and a large number of recipients contracted Giullain Barre syndrome. They tested a vaccine for SARS and it actually sensitized recipients to Coronavirus infections and the tests were discontinued. Still no vaccine for colds and universal influenza so it can be problematic.

 

[bcla]

Vaccines are never a sure thing. I remember they tested the first vaccine for H1N1 and a large number of recipients contracted Giullain Barre syndrome. They tested a vaccine for SARS and it actually sensitized recipients to Coronavirus infections and the tests were discontinued. Still no vaccine for colds and universal influenza so it can be problematic.

It might be possible to create a vaccine for a single common cold virus. However, there hasn't been much of an effort given that there are hundreds of different common cold viruses (including some coronaviruses) and that the common cold is universally a mild illness.

 

[monsterkitty]

Flattening the curve and social distancing potentially reduce the number of deaths if we practice both until the majority of the population are vaccinated or interventions are found. Is that a reasonable expectation to continue as is for 12 more months?

Otherwise we are just shifting when the deaths occur.

It will be interesting to look back a year or more from now and see if flattening the curve or herd immunity was the better approach.

Most viruses need around 70% of people to have already had the virus or be vaccinated in order for the herd immunity to work. According the new data from the CDC, COVID 19 will require at least 82%. From this article: High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2

The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).

From the same article:

Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine.

 

[mjkacmom]

I agree with your comments and believe these measures taken are mainly sensible and reasonable. High risk people self isolate and elementary children continue with school. Their new case rate is now low as is the death rate so if not at the peak really darn close. An ICU crisis at this point is very unlikely.

Their entire strategy was based on building natural immunity in the population. By allowing more face to face contact with respect to general quarantine they fostered more viral transmission and more natural immunity through antibody production. Once the population has sufficiently widespread immunity the virus will no longer transmit widely. They will no longer have to worry about another “wave” of this virus reaching pandemic conditions.

The death rate now is .015% so a far cry from the .7% model predictions.

How do you know the death rate when the majority haven’t been tested? More people in NYC died of covid19 in 3 days than flu in an entire season. I wake up every morning knowing there is a good chance that someone I know died the day before, this is not normal. No one knows if you can’t be reinfected. The only reason the new case rate is lower is because of the lockdown. Herd immunity was never the plan.