How many weeks can America and the rest of the world continue to push social distancing policies, closed borders, etc in the name of stopping coronavirus? At what point might the damage to the economy and society outweigh the risk to health caused by coronavirus?
How long will this last?
- Thread starter SLOHusker
- Start date
Given the number of deaths in other countries....I dont know how that could be answered. I work in eldercare. Im not willing to say in 90 days etc that anything is more important than those lives I care for. I do think getting some short term relief in place is critical. And yes, I do think SHORT TERM small stimulus payments would help keep families in their homes/apartments....and food on the table.
No in 2-3 weeks the #s will be skyrocketing, we're 4 weeks behind Italy but with a much bigger population.
Well if one thing is sure, this board can always count on you to lighten the mood some. We will all get through this. Lots of people will get sick, but it isn't even close to the flu every year in deaths.
Italy is not the U.S. It has a very elderly population, with many multi-generational households, where people greet with kisses on the cheek, and a very high percentage of smokers. They also have direct flights from Wuhan and employ thousands of people from there in their factories.
And when our government was shutting down travel from China, their government was making videos like this:
We don't have the same legal infrastructure in place to handle this as quickly as Korea did. Could be a while honestly.
Legal Analysis: S Korea vs USA
Legal Analysis: S Korea vs USA
I saw a report that of their first 100 or so deaths, the average age was 81. Saw another report that 98.9 % of victims were 60 plus. 56% were over 80. I totally didn’t think about the kissing thing too.
According to a very recent medical memo I saw, in Nebraska we’re about 3-4 weeks out from a major uptick in cases.
The expectation is that we’ll hit our peak middle of May.
The expectation is that we’ll hit our peak middle of May.
Most everyone is behaving now, thank goodness. I hope this goes quickly because I feel like I’m going to work at a powder keg waiting to go off. The longer stores are short on certain items and kids are out of school just scares me. However, I’ve got a bad feeling that in order to achieve the goal that everyone wants, this is going to be a long haul.
Looking at china, and yes, they haven't shot straight with the world, they appeared to have crested.
I believe having more things in place, healthier population, a slight heads up, no thanks to china, they blew up in early feb, so ,seven weeks, then decline.
June
I believe having more things in place, healthier population, a slight heads up, no thanks to china, they blew up in early feb, so ,seven weeks, then decline.
June
I can’t even comprehend this report...this is why the sudden shift happened by governments, this report.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The Imperial College team plugged infection and death rates from China/Korea/Italy into epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what happens if the US does absolutely nothing -- if we treat COVID-19 like the flu, go about our business, and let the virus take its course?
Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease. 0.9% of them would die. Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die. 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.
It gets worse. People with severe COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators. 50% of those on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live. But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number available in the US. Nearly 100% of these patients die.
So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months. 8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.
How many is 4 million people? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the population of Los Angeles. It's 4 times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined. It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.
Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population. If we extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world (warning: MOE is high here), this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19, in 3-6 months. 15 Holocausts. 1.5 times as many people as died in all of World War II.
Now, of course countries won't stand by and do nothing. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy: all symptomatic cases in the US in isolation. Families of those cases quarantined. All Americans over 70 social distancing.
This mitigation strategy is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough. The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself. The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by 8 times.
That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths. The population of Houston. Two Civil Wars. One-third of the Holocaust. Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II. That's what happens if we rely on mitigation & common sense.
Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, assuming a "suppression" strategy: isolate symptomatic cases, quarantine their family members, social distancing for the whole population, all public gatherings/most workplaces shut down, schools and universities close.
Suppression works! The death rate in the US peaks 3 weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit but don't exceed the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear.
But here's the catch: if we EVER relax suppression before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before.
After the 1st suppression period ends in July, we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by 2 more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. Staggering breaks by city could do a bit better.
But we simply cannot EVER allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen.
How quickly will a vaccine be here? Last week three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing. That's an extreme measure, but necessary.
Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for 14 months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This part can't be rushed: if you're going to inoculate all humans, you have to make absolutely sure the vaccine itself won't kill them. It probably won't, but you have to be sure.
Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.
During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary. Our economy and society will be disrupted in profound ways. And if suppression actually works, it will feel like we're doing all this for nothing, because infection and death rates will remain low.
It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war. It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do. /end
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The Imperial College team plugged infection and death rates from China/Korea/Italy into epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what happens if the US does absolutely nothing -- if we treat COVID-19 like the flu, go about our business, and let the virus take its course?
Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease. 0.9% of them would die. Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die. 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.
It gets worse. People with severe COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators. 50% of those on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live. But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number available in the US. Nearly 100% of these patients die.
So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months. 8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.
How many is 4 million people? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the population of Los Angeles. It's 4 times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined. It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.
Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population. If we extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world (warning: MOE is high here), this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19, in 3-6 months. 15 Holocausts. 1.5 times as many people as died in all of World War II.
Now, of course countries won't stand by and do nothing. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy: all symptomatic cases in the US in isolation. Families of those cases quarantined. All Americans over 70 social distancing.
This mitigation strategy is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough. The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself. The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by 8 times.
That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths. The population of Houston. Two Civil Wars. One-third of the Holocaust. Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II. That's what happens if we rely on mitigation & common sense.
Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, assuming a "suppression" strategy: isolate symptomatic cases, quarantine their family members, social distancing for the whole population, all public gatherings/most workplaces shut down, schools and universities close.
Suppression works! The death rate in the US peaks 3 weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit but don't exceed the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear.
But here's the catch: if we EVER relax suppression before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before.
After the 1st suppression period ends in July, we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by 2 more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. Staggering breaks by city could do a bit better.
But we simply cannot EVER allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen.
How quickly will a vaccine be here? Last week three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing. That's an extreme measure, but necessary.
Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for 14 months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This part can't be rushed: if you're going to inoculate all humans, you have to make absolutely sure the vaccine itself won't kill them. It probably won't, but you have to be sure.
Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.
During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary. Our economy and society will be disrupted in profound ways. And if suppression actually works, it will feel like we're doing all this for nothing, because infection and death rates will remain low.
It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war. It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do. /end
Understand, slowing this down is the key, keeping our health workers healthy, creating more ventilators, we can ease up in their usage if we avoid major spikes.
This will depend on beating that curve.
That 3 million on some computer, china mishandled it, stopped the spread of information, let it spike, then took totalitarian control.
Itlays population is indeed older than ours, and they also have I believe one third the ventilators per capita as us.
The other day I was told by a medical person they are planning for 18 months. It will tick up from.now until summer then go down and start back up again in fall. The summer heat will slow it down. This seems to fit the narrative above and not what most want to hear.
Well, not everyone is behaving. Beaches are full of spring-breakers who dont care about social distance recommendations.
i put the kibbosh on our 20 yr olds spring break trip to florida.
im unpopular with her and her friends, but i do not care.
The problem with that may be context, and current standing. If they run the vaccine through fast, which is most likely, as this is a pandemic, we may have a vaccine through fast tracking much much sooner than that.
That doesnt mean a vaccine will be bulletproof, or every gets it, so context might mean still dealing with this, but also, gaining that firewall of a societal antibody effect leaves the virus out to die.
Plus you just don’t have to think about your 20 yr old daughter being in a spring break trip. My God I am not looking forward to that stuff as a father.
How bad? Really depends on the amount of community spread before the % of person to person contact decreased. Will vary from place to place.
The bed continues to be shat on testing. To be honest, it seems intentional at this point, but it can’t be. So I’ll go with incompetence.
Get rapid testing down plus drug regimens that work and some resemblance to normality can be achieved. But for now, let’s try not to overwhelm our medical system.
The bed continues to be shat on testing. To be honest, it seems intentional at this point, but it can’t be. So I’ll go with incompetence.
Get rapid testing down plus drug regimens that work and some resemblance to normality can be achieved. But for now, let’s try not to overwhelm our medical system.
Last edited:
So relative to sports, and I know that's not most important here, but this report basically says there will be no sports for over a year, is that your understanding here? So no baseball, football, golf, basketball and hockey until next year (2021)? Maybe longer?
I’m talking locally, and I’m regards to crime and rioting. Society is going to have a really hard time convincing college aged kids to not do things like that when they know they are not the “at risk” group.
Yep. I'm 35, but I can tell you if I was back in the 18-22 group I'd more than likely have that attitude. It wouldn't be meant to be malicious, but it's like why should I worry about it when I can drink and fornicate. Obviously you gain perspective and you change as you age and have life events, but it is going to be hard to tell kids who are no longer under supervision to abide by the rules if it is not going to have adverse effects on them personally.
We can't shut down the economy for 18 months. I understand social distancing for a few weeks so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed. But after that, it should be about keeping the elderly and vulnerable out of public, while the rest of us get on with our lives. A Great Depression will destroy more lives than the virus.
Italy has a lot of smokers and what I’ve read this virus really hits smokers hard I will say the information I read could be total bs
this is a scare tactic. italy literally told their people to hug Chinese people, while we banned travel from China. We're not going to have anywhere near the problem that they are. We also have way more ICU capacity.