Until we can start testing communities we won't know where herd immunity exists. If we can ID those people, we can send them to our front lines of needs. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
Perhaps so, but note that there are presently no approved immunity tests for covid-19. — Andrew M
In the meantime, the community priority must be to suppress the virus before millions of people die. The window is closing. — Andrew M
Coronavirus: Spanish army finds care home residents 'dead and abandoned'Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told the private TV channel Telecinco that the government was "going to be strict and inflexible when dealing with the way older people are treated" in retirement homes.
"The army, during certain visits, found some older people completely abandoned, sometimes even dead in their beds," she said.
The defence ministry said that staff at some care homes had left after the coronavirus was detected.
2) The President is worried about the economic recession and wants to loosen the "lock down". — ssu
Which is totally crazy. Economic recession isn't the same as an all out nuclear strike in the US. Recession is a time when wealth changes hands and people are unemployed. And economic growth starts when everybody is all doom and gloom.That is childish thinking. Without an economy, everybody dies. — Nobeernolife
Yes. That is the general consensus. Here it was for a month, not a year. Some talk of two months. Nobody is talking of a year or two long lockdown.I was just watching the debate in the German parliament where they are going to pass a comprehensive Corona emergency packet, and even the far out opposition parties (both left and right) agree that the restrictions on movement and the government support that is planned can only be maintained for a limited time. — Nobeernolife
YES YES YES!!!!!Trump is completely correct in saying that the cure must be worse than the disease, In a world without derangement syndrome, that would just be a common sense statement. — Nobeernolife
Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control. “South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea’s success may hold lessons for other countries—and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.
As far as numbers go, it seems like the those who'd ape the president's just-thinking-aloud about the keeping the US 'open for business' are, in practice, willing to forgo roughly 600,000 lives.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/economic-shutdown-is-estimated-to-save-600-000-american-lives — StreetlightX
We extend the canonical epidemiology model to study the interaction between economic decisions and epidemics. Our model implies that people's decision to cut back on consumption and work reduces the severity of the epidemic, as measured by total deaths. These decisions exacerbate the size of the recession caused by the epidemic. The competitive equilibrium is not socially optimal because infected people do not fully internalize the effect of their economic decisions on the spread of the virus. In our benchmark scenario, the optimal containment policy increases the severity of the recession but saves roughly half a million lives in the U.S. — The Macroeconomics of Epidemics - Eichenbaum, Rebeloz, Trabandt
As the COVID-19 virus spreads throughout the world, governments are struggling with how
to understand and manage the epidemic. Epidemiology models have been widely used to
predict the course of the epidemic.1 While these models are very useful, they do have an
important shortcoming: they do not allow for the interaction between economic decisions
and rates of infection.
Policy makers certainly appreciate this interaction. For example, in their March 19, 2020
Financial Times op ed Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen write that
"In the near term, public health objectives necessitate people staying home from shopping and work, especially if they are sick or at risk. So production and spending must inevitably decline for a time."
NOS4A2,It’s not wrong. South Korea didn’t need to put their economy on hold and to enact draconian measures. — NOS4A2
I realize that the suppression is necessary to flatten the curve but we could be protecting our first responders with antibodies from people who have been infected and have recovered, no? — ArguingWAristotleTiff
Have you picked up what people have said about the strategy of how to prevent pandemics? — ssu
It is too late for that in the US. The CDC and FDA have royalty screwed our chances at early testing. — NOS4A2
The predicted spike in London is showing now with a rapid increase in confirmed cases and hospital admissions. And yet, the underground (metro) had packed commuter trains this morning. Packed with key workers and critical healthcare workers, presumably spreading it amongst themselves. The hospitals will be overwhelmed within a week. — Punshhh
Already showing the seeds for the next blame game.
Thank you for the reflection as I might very well be looking to my circle of thinkers for stability. It is a by product of loving people. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
But I am a firm believer in the right to try and that has to be made available to those who want to try a test that might still be in trial. The fact that there is community spread suggests that herd immunity might be measurable.
...
I realize that the suppression is necessary to flatten the curve but we could be protecting our first responders with antibodies from people who have been infected and have recovered, no? — ArguingWAristotleTiff
The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, has begun an internal review to assess its own mistakes. But outside observers and federal health officials have pointed to four primary issues that together hampered the national response — the early decision not to use the test adopted by the World Health Organization, flaws with the more complex test developed by the CDC, government guidelines restricting who could be tested and delays in engaging the private sector to ramp up testing capacity.
Combined with messaging from the White House minimizing the disease, that fueled a lackluster response that missed chances to slow the spread of the virus, they said.
“There were many, many opportunities not to end up where we are,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard, told the AP. “Basically, they took this as business as usual. ... And that’s because the messaging from the White House was ‘this is not a big deal, this is no worse than the flu.’ So that message basically created no sense of urgency within the FDA or the CDC to fix it.”
.....
The CDC published the technical details for its COVID-19 test on Jan. 28, 10 days after the WHO. By then, the virus had already been in the U.S. for at least two weeks.
The 35-year-old man who would become the first American to test positive had arrived in Seattle on Jan. 15, following a trip to Wuhan. After swabs from his nose and throat were flown to the CDC lab, federal officials announced the results Jan. 21.
In an interview on CNBC the following day, the Republican President was asked about the risk to the nation.
“We have it totally under control,” he said. “It’s one person coming in from China. ... It’s going to be just fine.”
With limited capacity at the CDC lab in Atlanta, the agency placed strict criteria on who could be tested: people with fevers, coughing or difficulty breathing who had also visited Wuhan within the preceding two weeks or who had close contact with someone already confirmed or under investigation for having the virus.
On Jan. 30, the day the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency, Trump again assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control.”
Then he departed for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he tweeted a photo of himself playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach.
You totally have the right to your opinion even if I'm not so suspicious as you are about it.My argument is that I am suspicious of step 3 for the reasons I’ve already stated. — NOS4A2
Great idea, except increasing medical capacity takes time. Not going to happen in weeks, Hanover. In 2021 the situation will be different for sure. But this would be a thing to do before a pandemic, you know.If the object is to flatten the curve to keep total serious cases low enough so that there's adequate medical treatment, and then you spend a trillion dollars propping up the economy, wouldn't it make more sense to just increase the medical capacity with that trillion dollars? That's what I'd do. — Hanover
It's a dangerous lie that it is only corporations panicking about "bottom lines". Many of us are without work, and if this continues much longer, will be unable to pay bills and rent. — NOS4A2
So many things that can be done. But you'd much prefer to murder half a million+ of your population. — StreetlightX
Oh I forgot to mention, house every single homeless person so they do not pose a public health danger. And then keep this up, forever. — StreetlightX
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