Will this end up being the pandemic that cried wolf?

[pahoben]

It seems some misunderstand exactly what Sweden did and did not do. First and foremost the Swedes are following the same kind of social distancing guidelines implemented in many other countries. Additionally cell phone data indicates many are staying home. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend and there was an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital. And, big manufacturing companies, such as Volvo, closed.

Despite that, infection and death rates are higher than in neighboring Scandinavian countries. Swedes have perhaps the best healthcare system in the world. They have an extremely high proportion of single person households as well as a very high work from home rate, each of which significantly limits disease spread.

“Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there’s little to no social distancing going on.
‘We don’t have a radically different view,’ Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. ‘The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It’s a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden.’”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ersial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

If you look at videos of Stockholm right now you will see people walking together on the street and eating and drinking beer together in restaurants so yes a considerable difference. Elementary schools and kindergartens are in session so yes a big difference.

 

[jlwhitney]

If you look at videos of Stockholm right now you will see people walking together on the street and eating and drinking beer together in restaurants so yes a considerable difference. Elementary schools and kindergartens are in session so yes a big difference.

I am going to be very interested to see when all this is over how the different plans of each country play out and how they compare to each other.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Children have zero fatality risk from this virus and are forced to stay inside and it impacts their education for no good reason. My children and myself cannot impact anyone that chooses to effectively self isolate. In fact the sooner we are exposed and develop antibodies and can no longer be carriers the better it is for people that do self isolate. This idea of selfish self interest in this case really makes no sense.

Facts matter, and I think you're making some pretty big assumptions. We don't know if exposure to the virus offers immunity. And if it does, we don't know how long it lasts. If that's a risk people are willing to take, so be it, I guess. Also, while thankfully, children do seem to spared in this pandemic, the rest of us don't get to choose which course of the virus we get. If that were the case, I'd be in the "Wow, can't believe I had it, felt no symptoms!" line.

I take more of an issue with the people who are out there now, gathering, not social distancing, and not wearing masks before their state's "stay at home" orders are lifted. I am doing everything that I'm being ordered to do by my governor in order to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus. Those people may very well be the next "cluster" to pop up in their respective states. We'll know in about 3 weeks. Based on the footage I saw, many of them were middle-aged men. Many of them were overweight. If you've been following how this virus is attacking our population, then you know that particular cohort is at more risk than others.

 

[Jrb1979]

Facts matter, and I think you're making some pretty big assumptions. We don't know if exposure to the virus offers immunity. And if it does, we don't know how long it lasts. If that's a risk people are willing to take, so be it, I guess. Also, while thankfully, children do seem to spared in this pandemic, the rest of us don't get to choose which course of the virus we get. If that were the case, I'd be in the "Wow, can't believe I had it, felt no symptoms!" line.

I take more of an issue with the people who are out there now, gathering, not social distancing, and not wearing masks before their state's "stay at home" orders are lifted. I am doing everything that I'm being ordered to do by my governor in order to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus. Those people may very well be the next "cluster" to pop up in their respective states. We'll know in about 3 weeks. Based on the footage I saw, many of them were middle-aged men. Many of them were overweight. If you've been following how this virus is attacking our population, then you know that particular cohort is at more risk than others.

I have always said the issue with this virus is that, for most, unless it affected them personally it didn't happen. I know first hand what this does to people. Its much more serious than the flu.

 

[pahoben]

Facts matter, and I think you're making some pretty big assumptions. We don't know if exposure to the virus offers immunity. And if it does, we don't know how long it lasts. If that's a risk people are willing to take, so be it, I guess. Also, while thankfully, children do seem to spared in this pandemic, the rest of us don't get to choose which course of the virus we get. If that were the case, I'd be in the "Wow, can't believe I had it, felt no symptoms!" line.

I take more of an issue with the people who are out there now, gathering, not social distancing, and not wearing masks before their state's "stay at home" orders are lifted. I am doing everything that I'm being ordered to do by my governor in order to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus. Those people may very well be the next "cluster" to pop up in their respective states. We'll know in about 3 weeks. Based on the footage I saw, many of them were middle-aged men. Many of them were overweight. If you've been following how this virus is attacking our population, then you know that particular cohort is at more risk than others.

Antibody testing has started and I haven’t seen hard data but the anecdotal reports are that antibodies to this virus are surprisingly widespread. The Diamond Princess data is even consistent with a viral exposure maybe 60 years ago still providing immunity to some individuals in that cohort. I am looking forward to seeing the actual data soon. Mankind and viruses have been battling for tens of thousands of years and both still here.

Those people made the decision to accept the risk and yes we will see. The spring break crowds that many were concerned about amounted to nothing and I doubt this will either. They do have some additional risk with being overweight but still not in the highest risk cohort.

 

[dvcgirl67]

I am going to be very interested to see when all this is over how the different plans of each country play out and how they compare to each other.

I am going to be very interested to see when all this is over how the different plans of each country play out and how they compare to each other.

The countries handling these crisis the best....are almost exclusively led by women. Smart women. Angela Merkel, in particular, has done an amazing job as leader of a large western nation. She's a formally trained scientist. They started serology testing as soon as they locked down in preparation for re-opening their country. So...smart women leaders win.

Clockwise from top left: Germany's Angela Merkel, New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern, SIngapore's Halimah Yacoob, Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen, Iceland's Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Denmark's Mette Frederiksen and Finland's Sanna Marin

 

[sam_gordon]

I wrote also that your worldometer data doesn’t show upward trend of new cases nor new deaths.

Um, actually worldometer does. Click on the country for more detail and scroll down a little (all screen shots taken at 8:30AM ET 4/2).
US



Sweden

 

[dvcgirl67]

Antibody testing has started and I haven’t seen hard data but the anecdotal reports are that antibodies to this virus are surprisingly widespread.

I've only seen one serology study, the one out of Stanford for Santa Clara County. At the time of the test, that county of 1,928,000 million people only had 960 positive COVID-19 cases. So, 0.0004973% of the population are confirmed positives. The headline in the Mercury Sun News regarding the serology was something like, "positive cases are 50 to 85 times higher than what we know". Which sounds amazing right....wow, if that many people have already had it....then we may be closer to getting this all over with.

However, this takes us back to math. Multiply our confirmed positive number by 50, and we get 2.4%. By 85, we get 4.2%. So, instead of just 960 people being positive, Santa Clara County, with a population of just under 2 million people, likely has 46,000 to 81,000 positive cases, which is still....just 2.4 to 4.2%.

But, Santa Clara County, locked down very early, before they had a lot of cases. A lot of really smart people live there. Again, keeping with my "smart people do best in a pandemic" theme. They locked down almost a full week before most of the rest of the country. And so yes, we may have a higher percentage of positives in areas that developed larger outbreaks. I've seen estimates as high at 10%. So if 10% of us have had it in the country, great, that's 33 million people. And so 297 million of us have not. We've got a long way to go.

We're going to be going through this, and living with this virus for a long time. I'm not sure most Americans fully grasp that fact yet.

 

[pahoben]

Um, actually worldometer does. Click on the country for more detail and scroll down a little (all screen shots taken at 8:30AM ET 4/2).
US
View attachment 489410
View attachment 489411

Sweden
View attachment 489412
View attachment 489413

No it doesn’t. They are flat from early April. There is no ongoing increase in either category apparent. Sorry I didn’t understand correctly

 

[sam_gordon]

No it doesn’t. They are flat from early April. There is no exponential increase in either category apparent.

You didn't ask for "exponential increase", you talked about "upward trend". I'd say the US is trending (slightly but still trending) down (hope that continues). Sweden is possibly flat. I'd want to see another week before looking for their trend.

That being said, I actually read your post as worldometers doesn't supply new case/new deaths numbers.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We are in Illinois with stringent rules on isolation. Yes I’m tired of it but I understand, my husband and I are in our 70s and healthy, we have a 34 year old daughter with Down syndrome that we are mostly worried about. A long time friend of hers, also with Down syndrome, same age, just died after being in the hospital two weeks. It is very scary when it hits home. While our daughter is relatively healthy she does have allergies, and thyroid problems among other things. Plus she has a repaired heart as a baby, if she were to get sick, I don’t know how should we do. And we can’t afford to find out. we Also have a niece who is an ER nurse. she sees new patients every day and is exhausted like other health professionals, I’m disgusted by the Covidiots (love that!) that have so little regard for others and prattle on about their loss of personal freedom, egged on by moronic politicians. Like so called patriots who love war, but have never served themselves, these idiots should be forced to volunteer in local hospitals and nursing homes. these kinds of people are good at telling others what they should do as long as they don’t have to do it themselves.

 

[pahoben]

I've only seen one serology study, the one out of Stanford for Santa Clara County. At the time of the test, that county of 1,928,000 million people only had 960 positive COVID-19 cases. So, 0.0004973% of the population are confirmed positives. The headline in the Mercury Sun News regarding the serology was something like, "positive cases are 50 to 85 times higher than what we know". Which sounds amazing right....wow, if that many people have already had it....then we may be closer to getting this all over with.

However, this takes us back to math. Multiply our confirmed positive number by 50, and we get 2.4%. By 85, we get 4.2%. So, instead of just 960 people being positive, Santa Clara County, with a population of just under 2 million people, likely has 46,000 to 81,000 positive cases, which is still....just 2.4 to 4.2%.

But, Santa Clara County, locked down very early, before they had a lot of cases. A lot of really smart people live there. Again, keeping with my "smart people do best in a pandemic" theme. They locked down almost a full week before most of the rest of the country. And so yes, we may have a higher percentage of positives in areas that developed larger outbreaks. I've seen estimates as high at 10%. So if 10% of us have had it in the country, great, that's 33 million people. And so 297 million of us have not. We've got a long way to go.

We're going to be going through this, and living with this virus for a long time. I'm not sure most Americans fully grasp that fact yet.

And with an ever greater global population living ever closer together in urban areas viruses have ever greater opportunities to mutate and transmit. No getting around the fact that human trends are positive for this problem arising more frequently rather than less frequently.

 

[pahoben]

You didn't ask for "exponential increase", you talked about "upward trend". I'd say the US is trending (slightly but still trending) down (hope that continues). Sweden is possibly flat. I'd want to see another week before looking for their trend.

That being said, I actually read your post as worldometers doesn't supply new case/new deaths numbers.

Yes sorry. My original statement was flat so if not at the peak then very close.

 

[Pooh93]

I think that's going to be my new motto or mantra or whatever you call it.

My dad used to say this all the time. Now, I catch myself saying it more and more. LOL. Man, I miss my dad. *sigh*

 

[pahoben]

You didn't ask for "exponential increase", you talked about "upward trend". I'd say the US is trending (slightly but still trending) down (hope that continues). Sweden is possibly flat. I'd want to see another week before looking for their trend.

That being said, I actually read your post as worldometers doesn't supply new case/new deaths numbers.

Also I agree about seeing a few more days. I think they provide an update at midnight and weekend numbers often change. More data is always better.

 

[pahoben]

We are in Illinois with stringent rules on isolation. Yes I’m tired of it but I understand, my husband and I are in our 70s and healthy, we have a 34 year old daughter with Down syndrome that we are mostly worried about. A long time friend of hers, also with Down syndrome, same age, just died after being in the hospital two weeks. It is very scary when it hits home. While our daughter is relatively healthy she does have allergies, and thyroid problems among other things. Plus she has a repaired heart as a baby, if she were to get sick, I don’t know how should we do. And we can’t afford to find out. we Also have a niece who is an ER nurse. she sees new patients every day and is exhausted like other health professionals, I’m disgusted by the Covidiots (love that!) that have so little regard for others and prattle on about their loss of personal freedom, egged on by moronic politicians. Like so called patriots who love war, but have never served themselves, these idiots should be forced to volunteer in local hospitals and nursing homes. these kinds of people are good at telling others what they should do as long as they don’t have to do it themselves.

I hope with all my heart that you are able to protect your daughter and can’t imagine the stress you must be feeling. I am sure you are doing everything right.

 

[TLSnell1981]

Covidiots? Really? Name calling?

 

[dvcgirl67]

For those of you still following this thread. If you'd like to have a deeper understanding of how the next year or two is going to play out in the United States, listen to the podcast The Daily for today. The host, Michael Barbaro interviews the NYT science and health reporter, Donald G. McNeil. Many you have probably already heard Barbaro interview McNeil in previous podcasts. McNeil has been dead on in predicting how this would all play out. I have been really following the advance of this virus since late January/early February, and when I heard McNeil first describe in February, that we, like China, would also enter into a "lockdown" phase...it was chilling. This was before anyone else, like Europe, had done so.

Today's episode is very similar to the story in the Times yesterday, but hearing McNeil describe it, well, it's going to be a long haul. For those interested, here's the link.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-how-long-lockdowns.html

 

[Colleen27]

Facts matter, and I think you're making some pretty big assumptions. We don't know if exposure to the virus offers immunity. And if it does, we don't know how long it lasts. If that's a risk people are willing to take, so be it, I guess. Also, while thankfully, children do seem to spared in this pandemic, the rest of us don't get to choose which course of the virus we get. If that were the case, I'd be in the "Wow, can't believe I had it, felt no symptoms!" line.

We don't know for sure, but we have every reason to believe. The insistence on keeping the "what if" of no immunity in the conversation is little more than fear mongering, because waiting on proof of lasting immunity necessarily precludes any sort of steps toward normalcy for years. There's simply no way to address that other than to track people who have already recovered and do periodic serology testing on them. And if we prove that it doesn't, well, then there's really no path forward at all because diseases that don't produce lasting immunity are also difficult-to-impossible to create vaccines against.

And with an ever greater global population living ever closer together in urban areas viruses have ever greater opportunities to mutate and transmit. No getting around the fact that human trends are positive for this problem arising more frequently rather than less frequently.

Except that history shows that isn't necessarily the case. The trend of increasing urbanization obviously provides more opportunity for disease spread, but so far, it has been more than counter-balanced by improvements in sanitation, nutrition and medical care. We've only seen a few relatively minor and quickly contained novel diseases emerge in the last century, and in that same time we've conquered smallpox and polio and measles and a number of other illnesses that mankind has lived with for millennia. There's no reason to believe that this pandemic will inevitably be followed by others, or by any general reversal of the trend of technology enabling longer and healthier human lives.

 

[dvcgirl67]

We don't know for sure, but we have every reason to believe. The insistence on keeping the "what if" of no immunity in the conversation is little more than fear mongering, because waiting on proof of lasting immunity necessarily precludes any sort of steps toward normalcy for years. There's simply no way to address that other than to track people who have already recovered and do periodic serology testing on them. And if we prove that it doesn't, well, then there's really no path forward at all because diseases that don't produce lasting immunity are also difficult-to-impossible to create vaccines against.
.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/20...nity-and-antibodies-and-plenty-we-still-dont/
That article...from today. Fauci is quoted in it....says that "sometimes we need to act based on historical assumptions".

But, there are an awful lot of experts who are saying...."not so fast", we don't know enough yet. Are they fear mongering? I don't think so. We don't know enough about this virus, and until recovered COVID-19 patients are studied for months, we won't know the extent of the effect of the antibodies that provide immunity. And whether that immunity is temporary or permanent.

We're all hoping that contracting this virus and surviving it provides one with a Willy Wonka style "golden ticket". All that I'm saying is that we don't know enough about this virus yet. That's what the experts are saying. And those are the people we should probably all listen to as we move through this crisis.