Coronavirus math

Quote: rxwine

According to current news articles, it's still under investigation not a completed investigation.

Paragraph 3

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-intelligence-agencies-say-coronavirus-originated-in-china-wasnt-man-madeor-genetically-modified-11588260228

Rxwine,

FYI...Pompeo isn't saying that it's man made. He's saying that overwhelming evidence points to it having escaped the lab. In other words, it's likely ANOTHER lab accident in China. The president is also claiming to have see convincing info via intel.

Quote: Keyser

Rxwine,

FYI...Pompeo isn't saying that it's man made. He's saying that overwhelming evidence points to it having escaped the lab. In other words, it's likely ANOTHER lab accident in China. The president is also claiming to have see convincing info via intel.

Intel isn't confirming the investigation is concluded. That's why I said 3rd paragraph.

Quote: darkoz

Is this an insult? Please explain.

I made a reference to an amusement park (without naming anyone, just a quote) and that was labeled an insult.

There is apparently a very thin line on this forum now.

No, I say this meaning it can't be solved inside your head. It makes sense for China to not spread this within their own country first, but they could have made such a move. There have been more people killed within China than we can even imagine. Doesn't seem like they have had it that bad, but didn't shut their exits. I think we're still within the realm of all possibility. One man's mind just can't see the error of it's own judgement and can wind up drifting far from the truth. Once you think you solve such a complex question so easily, almost cannot be accurate. I'm not taking a position either way, but have suspicions.

Quote: gordonm888

The Australian investigative report says:

China knew that this virus was transmitted by human-to human contact in early December.

In December, they banned all domestic internet searches (Chinese version of Google) on words and phrases about the Wuhan virus.

They issued an order that all genetic samples of the virus that were being held in Chinese laboratories must be destroyed. Not just "stop analyzing the samples" -the order was to destroy all genetic samples of the virus.

They arrested and jailed 8 doctors who have been characterized as whistle-blowers -who were trying to tell other citizens and newspapers that they were seeing evidence of a potentially dangerous virus.

Later, they told the Chinese public, via public media, to stop asking questions about the origin of the virus on social media. Reportedly, they made it illegal to discuss the virus on social media.

On January 4, WHO reported that the virus was not spread by human-to-human contact, based on what the Chinese told them. WHO did not refute this report until Jan 20, when they finally announced that it was spread by human-to-human contact. This is a key point, because coronaviruses are by definition animal viruses, and the capability for human-to-human transmission is unusual and would not have been presumed by foreign observers.

During January, they banned all travel out of Wuhan to other points in China -indicating they understood the danger of transmission. However, they still did not alert other nations to the problem and placed no restrictions on travel from Wuhan to Europe, the US and other points outside of China. Travelers from Wuhan, China went to Seattle, California, New York, Milan, etc.

And I AM NOT ADVOCATING TARIFFS OR ANY OTHER SPECIFIC ACTIONS AT THIS TIME, I am reporting the results of an Australian newspaper investigation written by an award-winning journalist. The write-up received 6 pages of coverage in a leading Australian newspaper on Saturday .

How in bloody hell can the very intelligent members of this forum absorb this information and not feel like something wrong has happened? This is not irrelevant.

https://www.news9.com/story/5e6fab8d327514d2a335196d/somethings-not-right-here-folks--a-look-at-usa-2009-h1n1-virus-compared-to-china-2020-corona-virus#.Xpja4uhIefs.facebook

No one cared about justice for 300,000 farmers who committed suicide after Monsanto destroyed their land.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5427059/

my wife came home from work crying yesterday
she works in a nursing home
this home was doing well until this week
but this week they started dying from Covid - several
the hospital sent people there who looked healthy - they rapidly deteriorated
my wife is very religious - Catholic - she sees it as God giving a punishment
I don't see it that way
I want her to quit but I can't force her
I don't want her to be a hero
I was doing okay with all of this but now I'm not
this is now just too, too much

Quote: lilredrooster

my wife came home from work crying yesterday
she works in a nursing home
this home was doing well until this week
but this week they started dying from Covid - several
the hospital sent people there who looked healthy - they rapidly deteriorated
my wife is very religious - Catholic - she sees it as God giving a punishment
I don't see it that way
I want her to quit but I can't force her
I don't want her to be a hero
I was doing okay with all of this but now I'm not
this is now just too, too much

My sympathy and if possible, thanks, to your wife, if she is able to continue to care for these folks in the midst of this. So very hard for all of us.

Quote: beachbumbabs

My sympathy and if possible, thanks, to your wife, if she is able to continue to care for these folks in the midst of this. So very hard for all of us.

thanks for your kind words
hopefully we'll get thru this okay and so will everybody else
just saw in the news today predictions of it getting much worse
and of course nursing homes are among the worst spots
que sera sera

Quote: lilredrooster

my wife came home from work crying yesterday
she works in a nursing home
this home was doing well until this week
but this week they started dying from Covid - several
the hospital sent people there who looked healthy - they rapidly deteriorated
my wife is very religious - Catholic - she sees it as God giving a punishment
I don't see it that way
I want her to quit but I can't force her
I don't want her to be a hero
I was doing okay with all of this but now I'm not
this is now just too, too much

Living in NYC I understand what you are going through.

First came the thought nothing should shut down here because this virus was so far away.

Then came the thought nothing should shut down because it was only a few cases.

Then came the the thought nothing should shut down because killing the economy was worse and it was affecting a lot of people but not me in any way.

Then came the death that affected me. And more dead that affected other friends I have.

And more death and more

All the anger I show at people on here calling for their freedom to work etc is because I already experienced the road to come.

But I didn't listen either. So you have my empathy

Quote: lilredrooster

my wife came home from work crying yesterday
she works in a nursing home
this home was doing well until this week
but this week they started dying from Covid - several
the hospital sent people there who looked healthy - they rapidly deteriorated
my wife is very religious - Catholic - she sees it as God giving a punishment
I don't see it that way
I want her to quit but I can't force her
I don't want her to be a hero
I was doing okay with all of this but now I'm not
this is now just too, too much

I'm sorry to hear this. Your wife is a hero right now. And I hope you and her stay safe.

Quote: gordonm888

The Australian investigative report says:

Not sure what report you're referencing. Can you post a link?

Quote: gordonm888

How in bloody hell can the very intelligent members of this forum absorb this information and not feel like something wrong has happened? This is not irrelevant.

I agree something very wrong has happened and I'm pissed and frustrated and worried. I suspect however that you and I are looking at the situation from differing points of views and, therefore, prioritizing issues and assigning blame differently.

Has anybody heard a theory as to why there is such a strong weekly oscillation in the reported deaths from Covid? Sunday/Monday deaths seem to be consistently lower than Wednesday/Thursday deaths. In the New Jersey stats, there is about a 4-to-1 difference.

According to news reports today, our local hospitals (in Tennessee) have furloughed 4,000 health care employees this past week because of their financial losses (about $1 Billion in the last 2 months.). Of the approximately 2,000 hospital beds in East Tennessee, 14 of those beds are filled with Covid-19 patients, but elective surgeries and out-patient surgeries are at near-zero. Child birth is the only stable revenue stream. Several hospitals may need to declare bankruptcy despite federal aid (which I think is primarily based on $1.2 million for each Covid-19 death in a hospital.)

I know many nurses that are now furloughed. I still know no one who has been diagnosed with coronavirus, and now we have local hospitals that may need to close. It is so bizarre to continue to hear fear-filled lectures about overwhelming our health care system!!!

This is what CNN and MSNBC cannot seem to understand. Our news media are centered in NYC and Washington DC. CNN shows videos of exhausted health care workers in Italy when discussing the U.S. situation without mentioning the videos are of Italy. The fear-mongering and hysterical boo-hooing by CNN and MSNBC is destroying lives and destroying our national health care system. The ignorance of CNN and MSNBC about what is happening outside of the NYC metropolitan area is profound and bone-deep - they are not sending news cameras to report from other areas of the country. Instead, Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo and Rachel Maddow sit in their seven-figure homes and lecture us about how other areas should not lift the "stay at home" orders.

We do not not need one set of rules developed by NYC elites imposed on the entire U.S. DarkOz, we are sorry about the death toll in NYC where population density is very high and where the NYC subway system apparently spread the coronavirus because it never got sanitized because it runs 24/7. But here's some info: some areas in the US don't have a subway system that we neglected to sanitize; and don't have a high population density. Nor do we have a governor that ordered assisted-living homes to admit covid-19 patients immediately upon their release from the hospital. We will not reap what NYC is reaping.

Again, 4000 health care workers furloughed this past week in Tenn. and hospitals discussing possible closures. Great fear-mongering job, guys!

Lots of Governors have been acting independently. Not sure why yours in Tennessee is unable to do the same. Those channels are shown in all the other states, afaik.

Quote: gordonm888

According to news reports today, our local hospitals (in Tennessee) have furloughed 4,000 health care employees this past week because of their financial losses (about $1 Billion in the last 2 months.). Of the approximately 2,000 hospital beds in East Tennessee, 14 of those beds are filled with Covid-19 patients, but elective surgeries and out-patient surgeries are at near-zero. Child birth is the only stable revenue stream. Several hospitals may need to declare bankruptcy despite federal aid (which I think is primarily based on $1.2 million for each Covid-19 death in a hospital.)

I know many nurses that are now furloughed. I still know no one who has been diagnosed with coronavirus, and now we have local hospitals that may need to close. It is so bizarre to continue to hear fear-filled lectures about overwhelming our health care system!!!

This is what CNN and MSNBC cannot seem to understand. Our news media are centered in NYC and Washington DC. CNN shows videos of exhausted health care workers in Italy when discussing the U.S. situation without mentioning the videos are of Italy. The fear-mongering and hysterical boo-hooing by CNN and MSNBC is destroying lives and destroying our national health care system. The ignorance of CNN and MSNBC about what is happening outside of the NYC metropolitan area is profound and bone-deep - they are not sending news cameras to report from other areas of the country. Instead, Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo and Rachel Maddow sit in their seven-figure homes and lecture us about how other areas should not lift the "stay at home" orders.

We do not not need one set of rules developed by NYC elites imposed on the entire U.S. DarkOz, we are sorry about the death toll in NYC where population density is very high and where the NYC subway system apparently spread the coronavirus because it never got sanitized because it runs 24/7. But here's some info: some areas in the US don't have a subway system that we neglected to sanitize; and don't have a high population density. Nor do we have a governor that ordered assisted-living homes to admit covid-19 patients immediately upon their release from the hospital. We will not reap what NYC is reaping.

Again, 4000 health care workers furloughed this past week in Tenn. and hospitals discussing possible closures. Great fear-mongering job, guys!

I understand.

The pressure is on so no one else has to go through what NY did.

I am certain on the tail end now if you asked the NY medical workers what they would have preferred, the psychological damage, the 13 hours 7 days a week while people died in their arms each and every day or being furloughed, they would pick the latter.

I fear rural America is going to find out just how bad Covid-19 is the hard way.

Population density equals out. Millions in NYC equals many hospitals and much equipment.

Rural America gets sick and there will be less cases as there are less people. But it will wind up probably the same percentage or worse because the hospital choices are less

The USA has gone from 35,000 to 70,000 deaths... In two weeks and is continuing to climb (while NY goes down). That doesn't bode well a lot of hope to my ears

Another 4 weeks and we'll have 200,000-300,000 new cases a day with 10,000-15,000 deaths a day in the USA. I expect Wendy's won't be advertising soon.

Gallup, New Mexico, is under lockdown because of over a thousand cases in about a week. US 40 runs through Gallup, and it is a significant fuel/food stop. They suspect thousands of drivers have been exposed while stopping for gas. I wonder how many of those people took 40 East and ended up driving through Tennessee.
Last week they were saying that 70,000 would die by August. It happened May 5th.
If this were a boxing match, we'd be going into the fourth round with the virus well ahead on points. It is not the time to be declaring victory.

We're in month two of two years. Tennessee will get hit soon enough. We've been fortunate in the east, as with Tennessee students absent, both Knoxville and the Tri-Cities areas are isolated. Except yeah -- 40 and 81 will provide plenty of access once things start moving, so look out.

I live in Knox County with a population of almost 500,000. Our cases and hospitalizations have been declining for more than 4 weeks. An 87 year old man died yesterday of covid-19, which was our 5th death in Knox County; 5 in 500,000. Compared to NYC which is lurching towards 1 death per 300 people.

indeed, NYC apparently has the highest per capita death rate in the world (from coronavirus) - with 25% of the deaths occurring in long-term health care facilities, thanks to the NYS Governor's order. The New York area is the extreme exception, not the rule, and I expect that history will treat the current NY leadership harshly.

The Tennessee governor has already ended the "stay at home" orders and begun reopening the Tennessee economy. He is not the problem. IMO, the problem is the national media who seek to enflame fear and distrust in their listeners for reasons that have nothing to do with honest reporting, and who seek to shame any governor and state for rescinding stay-at-home orders.

Looking at statistics through yesterday, the percent of NY dead in nursing homes is lower than any of its neighbors, but why let facts get in the way.
The Federal government set reasonable benchmarks for when an area should reopen. Opening before that will result in more deaths.
A Doctor on these boards said that he thought we should reopen when we were down to 200 deaths a day. We are currently at 3,000 a day. What else needs to be said?

Quote: billryan

Looking at statistics through yesterday, the percent of NY dead in nursing homes is lower than any of its neighbors, but why let facts get in the way.
The Federal government set reasonable benchmarks for when an area should reopen. Opening before that will result in more deaths.
A Doctor on these boards said that he thought we should reopen when we were down to 200 deaths a day. We are currently at 3,000 a day. What else needs to be said?

200 and 3,000 are national stats? Decisions about reopening shouldn’t be keyed off of that but more localized statistics.

Quote: billryan

Looking at statistics through yesterday, the percent of NY dead in nursing homes is lower than any of its neighbors, but why let facts get in the way.
The Federal government set reasonable benchmarks for when an area should reopen. Opening before that will result in more deaths.
A Doctor on these boards said that he thought we should reopen when we were down to 200 deaths a day. We are currently at 3,000 a day. What else needs to be said?

I think you are referring to me. Being a doctor does not make me an expert on when we should open or not. Each person will have their own opinion on the risk of death by opening versus the benefit of having the economy fully open, or at least substantially more open than it is now.
I agree with most posters here that it is more a local decision, not a national one.
One thing I want to make clear, and the post I'm quoting is partly misleading. Billy said "opening before that will result in more deaths".
WHATEVER date selected will result in more deaths than if we wait a week longer. FACT.

If I gave the 'acceptable' death per day total as only 200 in a prior post, (can you find it, I'm bad at these searches), I would raise that number now significantly. Seeing the ruination of many small businesses, and the likely bankruptcies of many large companies, and the idiotic response of the federal government in just printing more money without real thought, the risk of the lockdown continuing now seems far greater than 200 deaths a day nationwide. Just ban smoking and allow 5 more coronaviruses and we are even.

Quote: SOOPOO

I think you are referring to me. Being a doctor does not make me an expert on when we should open or not. Each person will have their own opinion on the risk of death by opening versus the benefit of having the economy fully open, or at least substantially more open than it is now.
I agree with most posters here that it is more a local decision, not a national one.
One thing I want to make clear, and the post I'm quoting is partly misleading. Billy said "opening before that will result in more deaths".
WHATEVER date selected will result in more deaths than if we wait a week longer. FACT.

If I gave the 'acceptable' death per day total as only 200 in a prior post, (can you find it, I'm bad at these searches), I would raise that number now significantly. Seeing the ruination of many small businesses, and the likely bankruptcies of many large companies, and the idiotic response of the federal government in just printing more money without real thought, the risk of the lockdown continuing now seems far greater than 200 deaths a day nationwide. Just ban smoking and allow 5 more coronaviruses and we are even.

So the next question is always"How high?"

3,000 dead a day is acceptable? (Apparently because states are starting to reopen)

I do think it should go by region though. NY is about to start reopening very cautiously that way

Opening, what are high travel areas for people coming in or out of an area, aren't necessarily only local effects. Opening vegas (as it was before) would potentially affect areas all over the US.

Quote: darkoz

So the next question is always"How high?"

I think the logical answer is that when the number of deaths due to the shutdown exceeds the number of deaths from the Coronavirus form this point forward, we should end the shutdown.

But, given 'experts' have trouble correctly predicting the effects of the Coronavirus, I doubt 'experts' will even approach correctly approximating the effects of a continued shutdown. So, there's the answer to that question, but an impossible one to calculate. I guess we just have to leave it to 'experts' to guess as to when this point is!

Quote: Joeman

I think the logical answer is that when the number of deaths due to the shutdown exceeds the number of deaths from the Coronavirus form this point forward, we should end the shutdown.

But, given 'experts' have trouble correctly predicting the effects of the Coronavirus, I doubt 'experts' will even approach correctly approximating the effects of a continued shutdown. So, there's the answer to that question, but an impossible one to calculate. I guess we just have to leave it to 'experts' to guess as to when this point is!

I don't think it's that difficult

35,000 deaths occurred from Covid-19 in the last 2 weeks.

Have there been 35,000 people who died from killing themselves because they lost their jobs in the comparable time period?

Starvation is not really a factor since America has food banks.

In fact the only food shortage we have now is not because food plants closed but because they remained open and became disease infected

Quote: darkoz

Quote: Joeman

I think the logical answer is that when the number of deaths due to the shutdown exceeds the number of deaths from the Coronavirus form this point forward, we should end the shutdown.

But, given 'experts' have trouble correctly predicting the effects of the Coronavirus, I doubt 'experts' will even approach correctly approximating the effects of a continued shutdown. So, there's the answer to that question, but an impossible one to calculate. I guess we just have to leave it to 'experts' to guess as to when this point is!

I don't think it's that difficult

35,000 deaths occurred from Covid-19 in the last 2 weeks.

Have there been 35,000 people who died from killing themselves because they lost their jobs in the comparable time period?

Starvation is not really a factor since America has food banks.

In fact the only food shortage we have now is not because food plants closed but because they remained open and became disease infected

Notice I said "from this point forward." I would imagine it will take years to shake out exactly how many deaths will have been attributed to the shutdown. 17,500/week? maybe not, but definitely a significant amount.

Quote: Joeman

Notice I said "from this point forward." I would imagine it will take years to shake out exactly how many deaths will have been attributed to the shutdown. 17,500/week? maybe not, but definitely a significant amount.

But In order to say the shutdown was worse, the weekly death toll for the shutdown has to be higher, agreed?

Otherwise the argument becomes less people dying of the shutdown is worse than more people dying of the virus

Even if it turns out 10,000 people a week commit suicide weekly due to Coronavirus I would prefer that to 17,500 a week dead from the virus

Also you have to weigh in the virus exponential factor

If opening the economy saved 5,000 lives from not committing suicide but caused 40,000 extra people to die from Coronavirus is that a fair trade off?

There is one more HUGE factor here.

Suppose you have 10,000 a week dead whichever decision you make. Which is better morally?

Here is my take. The 10,000 who committed suicide that's their choice. I am not worried about contracting a case of suicide. But the virus most certainly will affect other people without them choosing.

With that in mind even if both suicide from the shutdown and deaths from Covid-19 were equal I would pick the shutdown option

Kill yourself if you can't cope with loss of income but don't give me your diseases

Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington revealed this week that residents are holding “COVID-19 parties” in an effort to spread infections.

“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of COVID-19 parties occurring in our community, where noninfected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the Walla Walla Department of Health said in a statement on Tuesday.

Quote: DeMango

Couple of Doctors at Stanford thinking .01% mortality nationwide, 20-40K, or same as the normal flu season.

Spot on, as usual

Quote: darkoz

But In order to say the shutdown was worse, the weekly death toll for the shutdown has to be higher, agreed?

Otherwise the argument becomes less people dying of the shutdown is worse than more people dying of the virus

I believe quality of life is a lot more important than life itself. I believe most of us think that we will eventually die. If life isn't enjoyable what is the incentive to keep living? With that in mind I think the determing factor should be quality over quantity.

Quote: darkoz

So the next question is always"How high?"

3,000 dead a day is acceptable? (Apparently because states are starting to reopen)

I do think it should go by region though. NY is about to start reopening very cautiously that way

3,000 is an acceptable number. Since they from the start admitted "flattening the curve" did not reduce infection rate just spread it out. Ask yourself "3,000 per day compared to what?"

OPEN IT UP!

Quote: ChumpChange

Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington revealed this week that residents are holding “COVID-19 parties” in an effort to spread infections.

“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of COVID-19 parties occurring in our community, where noninfected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the Walla Walla Department of Health said in a statement on Tuesday.

Amand Bundy has been holding these on a regular basis in western Idaho.
His rallies consist of people claiming that Christians are immune to the disease and reminding people that the Jewish people could have prevented the holocaust if they had been armed. They also try to get people to pledge not to allow their family to get vaccinated.

Quote: DRich

I believe quality of life is a lot more important than life itself. I believe most of us think that we will eventually die. If life isn't enjoyable what is the incentive to keep living? With that in mind I think the determing factor should be quality over quantity.

The local Wendy's is out of beef, and Safeway is limiting people to two packages of chicken per checkout.
I can certainly see where some may wish to end it all rather than suffer such a loss of quality in their life.

Flattening the curve so far means going from 0K cases to 30K cases per day in the 3 weeks DURING a lockdown, and then topping out at 25K to 40K new cases a day for the next month. If there was no lockdown, every state would be paralyzed with sick and dying people, and businesses would be shutdown anyway.

Quote: billryan

The local Wendy's is out of beef, and Safeway is limiting people to two packages of chicken per checkout.
I can certainly see where some may wish to end it all rather than suffer such a loss of quality in their life.

I think that should be each individuals perogative. I rarely eat at Wendy's but if I did and it inconvenienced me, I would rather a few random people die than me being inconvenienced.

Sorry, I just put a low value on human life. Someone dies and someone else is born. It doesn't really affect anything.

Quote: ChumpChange

Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington revealed this week that residents are holding “COVID-19 parties” in an effort to spread infections.

“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of COVID-19 parties occurring in our community, where noninfected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the Walla Walla Department of Health said in a statement on Tuesday.

I wonder if all these people have health insurance. Otherwise, surviving a bad case could end up being expensive if they end up in the hospital.

Quote: DRich

I believe quality of life is a lot more important than life itself. I believe most of us think that we will eventually die. If life isn't enjoyable what is the incentive to keep living? With that in mind I think the determing factor should be quality over quantity.

Speaking for myself I was homeless for a number of years.

I admit suicide passed fleetingly through my head BUT I always said to myself what if tomorrow is better. Tomorrow in the long-term meaning not literally the very next dawn.

Here I am quite successfully living as an AP (even with the shutdown I have enough money to last awhile, oh the irony of those people who suggested I get a more steady job).

I don't know why everyone assumes if quality of life goes down, that's it, life done, time to check out.

Are we a country of fighters or whiners? We will get through this. Even if the pandemic lasted the full 18 months till a vaccine we would rebuild.

People have lost everything in wars and earthquake's and people didn't just kill themselves and die. They pushed forward and rebuilt

I don't know how the IRS gets paid with the Post Offices shutdown.

Quote: ChumpChange

I don't know how the IRS gets paid with the Post Offices shutdown.

They are still operating aren't they?

I received mail every single day (except Sunday) all through this and I live in hard hit NYC

Quote: darkoz

Speaking for myself I was homeless for a number of years.

I admit suicide passed fleetingly through my head BUT I always said to myself what if tomorrow is better. Tomorrow in the long-term meaning not literally the very next dawn.

Here I am quite successfully living as an AP (even with the shutdown I have enough money to last awhile, oh the irony of those people who suggested I get a more steady job).

I don't know why everyone assumes if quality of life goes down, that's it, life done, time to check out.

Are we a country of fighters or whiners? We will get through this. Even if the pandemic lasted the full 18 months till a vaccine we would rebuild.

People have lost everything in wars and earthquake's and people didn't just kill themselves and die. They pushed forward and rebuilt

We are all willing to accept different levels of hardship for others. I would gladly donate a penny to save a random persons life. I would not donate $100 to save a random persons life. We all have our price of what we are willing to do for others.

Quote: darkoz

But In order to say the shutdown was worse, the weekly death toll for the shutdown has to be higher, agreed?

Otherwise the argument becomes less people dying of the shutdown is worse than more people dying of the virus

Even if it turns out 10,000 people a week commit suicide weekly due to Coronavirus I would prefer that to 17,500 a week dead from the virus

Also you have to weigh in the virus exponential factor

If opening the economy saved 5,000 lives from not committing suicide but caused 40,000 extra people to die from Coronavirus is that a fair trade off?

There is one more HUGE factor here.

Suppose you have 10,000 a week dead whichever decision you make. Which is better morally?

Here is my take. The 10,000 who committed suicide that's their choice. I am not worried about contracting a case of suicide. But the virus most certainly will affect other people without them choosing.

With that in mind even if both suicide from the shutdown and deaths from Covid-19 were equal I would pick the shutdown option

Kill yourself if you can't cope with loss of income but don't give me your diseases

Remember, you're still free to self quarantine after the shelter-in-place orders are lifted!

We'll know more after July 1st when every state says they can't keep their interstate rest stops open because of state gov't shutdowns.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said preliminary data from the state’s hospitals indicates a majority of new hospitalizations related to Covid-19 are people who are mostly staying home and not venturing much outside, which he called “shocking.”

The early look at data from 100 New York hospitals, or around 1,000 people, shows that 66% of new admissions related to the coronavirus are people who were at home, Cuomo said. The next highest source of admissions in the state were from nursing homes at 18%.

“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Cuomo said. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”

Quote: ChumpChange

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said preliminary data from the state’s hospitals indicates a majority of new hospitalizations related to Covid-19 are people who are mostly staying home and not venturing much outside, which he called “shocking.”

The early look at data from 100 New York hospitals, or around 1,000 people, shows that 66% of new admissions related to the coronavirus are people who were at home, Cuomo said. The next highest source of admissions in the state were from nursing homes at 18%.

“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Cuomo said. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”

That doesn't surprise me.

Stay at home is not true quarantine by itself.

My neighbor stood home and had parties every weekend with fifty people over.

Quote: billryan

Looking at statistics through yesterday, the percent of NY dead in nursing homes is lower than any of its neighbors, but why let facts get in the way.

Let facts get in the way, Bill! Please, Bill, please! Let a parade of facts march through your brain and get in the way of your viewpoint.

Until very recently, NY was not even including nursing home deaths in their statistics. They just added 1700 earlier deaths to the stats yesterday and are continuing to accumulate the statistics. And, unlike other states, these official NY nursing home statistics that you are citing do not include the nursing home residents who were transferred to hospitals and died there!! Unlike other states, the NY stats include only those that died in the nursing homes (and again, those are still incompletely reported.) NY has been under-reporting and cooking the statistics in a way that is different than other states.

Start reading news articles, Bill, and do some research. You will see that reporters are contacting the NY nursing homes and getting counts of the number of residents that have died. I had read two estimates for NY nursing home residents: 25% of all reported deaths, and 30% of all reported deaths. I used the lower estimate in my previous post. I don't know if those numbers are correct, obviously. If you torture statistics, they will confess to anything. But I do know that the NY nursing home situation is emerging as a national disgrace -both because of the governor's role in creating it and because of the cover-up.

Quote: billryan

The Federal government set reasonable benchmarks for when an area should reopen. Opening before that will result in more deaths. A Doctor on these boards said that he thought we should reopen when we were down to 200 deaths a day. We are currently at 3,000 a day. What else needs to be said?

Okay, feel the steel-toed boots of facts as they parade through your consciousness.

1. The "reasonable Federal guidelines" you mention are not using statistics at the national level to promulgate a one-size fits-all mandate on the country. The large number of people dying in pain and horror in NYC nursing homes are not (and should not be) used as a trigger point for whether Northern Alaska or Iowa or Eastern Tennessee should be closed. The federal guidelines are to be applied on a county by county basis by the governors and mayors who know the situation in their areas best. And this has been the central theme of my recent posts, but somehow you seemed to have either missed or ignored what I have been saying.

2. The death rate in my home county - the 153rd most populous county of the 9000 counties in the US - is about 1 death per 14 days. Nurses are being furloughed because they have nothing to do. To repeat your tagline: "What else needs to be said?"

3. The fact that "A Doctor on these boards said that he thought we should reopen when we were down to 200 deaths a day" is, in my opinion, absurd and irrelevant. That is not the way that serious people think about a policy decision such as this.
- Doctors are disagreeing with each other all over the place on this issue like psychiatrists at a criminal trial. Anyone can find a doctor to support any point of view.
- Doctors are not trained on the economy and do NOT have the expertise to perform the relevant trade-off analysis between public health increments and destruction of jobs and wealth. Doctors have expertise on the human body and pharmaceuticals, which has limited application to the question of shutdowns.
- Doctors are not trained on how Sweden has handled the coronavirus and Sweden's success with limiting the pandemic without a shutdown. Are you aware of Sweden, Bill? Here comes an incoming fact: The WHO has recently said that Sweden should be used as a model for how to manage the virus without a shutdown.
- Most doctors are not even trained in epidemiology.
- Even epidemiological expertise is dross, is chaff, is less than nought when we don't understand the transmission modes, when we don't understand the rate of asymptomatic infection, when we don't understand how long the virus is active in the air and on surfaces as a function of temperature (which will be rising as summertime approaches -think water droplets in summer!), and when models continue to use inputs based on the Chinese reported statistics, which have been buggered beyond all understanding..

So, I give zero weight to an anecdotal rumor that some know-nothing drunken-sailor of a doctor, corrupted by partisan political aspirations and whose opinions are available for sale like a hooker in a strip club, was interviewed on MSNBC and said one thing or another thing about his opinion of how the staggering magnitude of NYC nursing home deaths should be applied to some notional centralized mandate on how to manage the economy in Wyoming or the length of an economic shutdown in East Tennessee. Bill, IMO everything about this 'claimed truth' is maliciously wrong at every level and in every way.

Fold up the Broadway theaters, Bill. Sweep away the NYC museums! Turn off the lights on the Empire State building. Encase the Statue of Liberty in concrete and bury it in an end-zone somewhere in NJ. Continue the shutdown of NYC, New Jersey and Connecticut until the death rate drops below some arbitrary threshold value espoused by MSNBC. Keep the entire metropolitan region shut down, even if it takes years. Even if it takes centuries. Destroy the NYC region utterly, if you wish. But leave the rest of us -and specifically Tennessee - out of your dream for the future.

Quote: darkoz

But In order to say the shutdown was worse, the weekly death toll for the shutdown has to be higher, agreed?

Not weekly, but total. Plus, assuming there are 17,500 dead wekly with the lockdown, the only numbers that would count as being attributed to lifting the shutdown would be those beyond the 17,500. And that's just Week 1. Good luck counting the numbers of deaths in Week 2 that would have occurred anyway with the shutdown still in place.

Quote:

Even if it turns out 10,000 people a week commit suicide weekly due to Coronavirus I would prefer that to 17,500 a week dead from the virus

I think suicides would be a significant factor, but only a part of a bigger picture. People will develop health conditions from depression/malnutrition/etc. that won't cause their death immediately, but will contribute down the road. We have to count those as well.

Do you think there might be a spike in violent crime due to a prolonged shutdown? I do, and now you are talking more deaths attributed to a continued shutdown. How about all the money our government will need to borrow to keep the country going during the shutdown? Our national debt will come home to roost one day, and the money we had to borrow because of the shutdown will be a part of that. Whether that results in hyper-inflation or devaluation of currency, or whatever, it will cost lives.

I'm sure there are still numerous effects that you or I didn't think of that will cause shortened life expectancy if the shutdown is prolonged. I'm not saying the shutdown needs to end now, I'm just saying it is very difficult to determine the impact of an extended shutdown. Far, far more unknowns than predicting what the virus will do, and you've seen how accurate those predictions are.

Quote: ChumpChange

Another 4 weeks and we'll have 200,000-300,000 new cases a day with 10,000-15,000 deaths a day in the USA. I expect Wendy's won't be advertising soon.

Cdc webpage has a lag. Worldometer is faster.

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

Quote: Joeman

I think the logical answer is that when the number of deaths due to the shutdown exceeds the number of deaths from the Coronavirus form this point forward, we should end the shutdown.

I could not disagree more. Social distancing and the shutdown saves lives lost due to the flu. And due to car accidents. And workplace accidents. And inner city urban violence. And likely air pollution.

We don't shut everything down to save 1, 10, 100, 1000 lives.

To paraphrase, you are saying we should accept no additional coronavirus deaths that opening up would cause. Not realistic. Not a reasonable public policy. Not going to happen!

Quote: SOOPOO

I could not disagree more. Social distancing and the shutdown saves lives lost due to the flu. And due to car accidents. And workplace accidents. And inner city urban violence. And likely air pollution.

We don't shut everything down to save 1, 10, 100, 1000 lives.

To paraphrase, you are saying we should accept no additional coronavirus deaths that opening up would cause. Not realistic. Not a reasonable public policy. Not going to happen!

I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm saying that there is a balance. At some point, the shutdown does more harm than good. That's when it should end.