Possible scenario for Covid-19

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I thought this was a thoughtful article about a likely scenario with Covid-19.

“One outcome is now looking almost certain: This virus is never going away.

The coronavirus is simply too widespread and too transmissible. The most likely scenario, experts say, is that the pandemic ends at some point—because enough people have been either infected or vaccinated—but the virus continues to circulate in lower levels around the globe.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/coronavirus-will-never-go-away/614860/

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I don’t think it was ever likely it could be contained. By the time the doctors in a city see 2 or 3 deadly cases and think something might be going on, 100s of others have been infected and in this day and age a fair number have traveled elsewhere in the world.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

It absolutely could have been contained. New Zealand and other countries have shown that. But we're Americans and we're far too... Independent? Smart? ...to listen to experts who recommend actions we would not otherwise carry out.

Have to disagree. I don’t think there is any good scientific evidence the proposed interventions would have worked. The case of New Zealand is anecdotal and a very different situation with an isolated island with a relatively small population.

I also suspect it will invade New Zealand eventually as well or they will need to vaccinate everyone. You can only keep up draconian isolation and quarantine for so long.

But I understand you have a different theory about all this.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

What do you make of the fact that the European Union is doing so much better than we are? Unlike New Zealand, they are not geographically isolated, and they have a larger population than we do.

View attachment 88643


https://www.statista.com/chart/22102/daily-covid-19-cases-in-the-us-and-the-eu/

Maybe we should find out how they're doing it.

The first thing I would do in trying to interpret a graph of raw cases numbers like that is normalize for population and testing rates. Then I would examine other independent factors like population density, use of public transport, and obesity levels, the latter having been shown to have a significant impact of actual mortality due to a Covid-19.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Well, the first item on your list is easy. 2019 population estimates are 328.2 million for the U.S., and 447.7 million for the E.U.

There is no mortality data in the chart I posted.

Yes, it usually takes some considerable effort to pull together the data in a reliable way and develop the appropriate statistical models to account for the other variables.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

This is the point I’ve been making since the beginning of this thing. Hiding from it is only effective while you hide, and unless you are off the grid and growing your own food, not totally effective even then. Hiding for years hoping for a vaccine is stupid.

I think it depends on the risk group a person is in. Since vaccines are looking promising in trials now, I advise the very vulnerable people in my family that a reasonable plan is to hunker down, if they can stand it, in strict isolation for the next 6 months to a year.

If you stay at home, have almost everything delivered, have visitors who must come use N95 or better protection or use same yourself, and minimize time when within 10 feet of other people, you can really reduce the risk.

Once either enough people have been vaccinated or infected to provide herd immunity, then things will start looking better. Seems like these things take one or two seasons usually.

This virus has thrown everybody a bad deal and it is very much a hardship to have to isolate like that, but if that is the price of survival, many will choose to do that.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

worldometers or the JHU site have these numbers available.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I was hoping to at least find the source of the discrepancy.

The way to do that of course is to look at both sites and check their sources. In my experience, this can take some effort and time.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

isn't it interesting that we can easily find reports of new confirmed cases and probable cases, but where are the reports of people recovered? Where are the reports of the people that never develop symptoms?

I believe covidtracking.com datasets have numbers recovered for states in the US.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Hong Kong has 7.5 million people and 55 deaths. Shares an intimate land border with the original epicenter. Somehow they managed to not only control the virus, but have since still stayed relatively virus free. They had a recent spike, but the peak of that spike was 10 times lower per capita than our constant levels and is now 20 times lower after only 3 weeks.

If we were doing as well as them we would have 2500 deaths at this point and not 165,000. That is quite a difference.

As I said, the recent paper in Lancet showed that it is unlikely coercive lockdowns are a causative factor in reducing Covid-19 mortality. These individual comparisons are essentially anecdotes.

There must be other factors that are responsible for some countries having lower deaths OR they are simply earlier in the virus spreading there and it will eventually happen. Another explanation in this case is that Hong Kong is controlled by China and since they are a totalitarian regime with a censored media their reports can not be trusted. (Why would anyone trust what such a government says?)