Covid-19 contagion and mortality rates discussed

.

TET: So, are contagion and mortality rates hyped? Very soon we will exceed the number killed in the Vietnam War over a decade, and that in only 6 weeks from the initial reported deaths.
Mar 20, - 249 dead.
Apr 20, - 42,604 dead.
Now consider this. The number of deaths at the top of the curve approximates the half point. Chances are that another 40-50,000 people will die on the way down the curve if the social distancing continues and widespread testing is not implemented. If we reopen too early without testing, the downslope of the curve could be very long, if not spike a second time.
Estimates of over 100,000 are almost guaranteed.

AH: Confirmed not fake news.

MV-H: AH, There will be thousands more people who think this way who end up dead. It's pathetic and tragic. But what's worse is they spread it to others and put health care workers at risk.

AH: MV-H, Exactly.

AH: People in Jacksonville don't get it. Florida is going to cause problems. BTW I live in Jacksonville. People here are awful regarding this.

DG: Sad but hard to argue with the math.

TS: Living in a country that is predicted to potentially have the highest death rate in Europe, I am appalled that the USA is so complacent about this threat. It is a sad fact that the history books will look very poorly on the needless deaths, compounded of course by the nature of the US health system. Hopefully, when all of this has blown over (which will be a very long time) the good people of America will have a chance to rethink the folly of leaving the national health system in the rapacious hands of the free market.

KT: you are spot on....well articulated!!!

TS: Btw, the reason we are likely to have the highest death rate is because we were two weeks behind the curve, and were so sloppy on testing. Product of an arrogant, complacent, lazy government and Prime Minister

TET: We can relate to that Tim......
KT:....boy oh boy can we relate....
the numbers are not hyped...in fact most experts say the deaths and the confirmed cases are way UNDER reported....THAT is the scary part...I maintain that one of the reasons that trumpf and admin are dragging their feet on testing is because they don't really want us to know how much worse this is....and remember, if someone dies at home-they are not counted as a covid 19 death....and that is in the thousands per day across the country....

DLH: KT, And they’re looking for a way to profit from this. Didn’t focus on testing because it wasn’t profitable. Sold PPE to China for profits. Someone posted a meme- Billionaires urging workers to go to work, just proves they don’t make their money, workers do.

KT: precisely!....the bourgeois will sit comfortably and safely in their mansions while the workers (a.k.a. sacrificial lambs) will do the work for them.....

BS: The longer we refuse to take the medicine, the longer we stay sick. Tough concept, I know.

LJR: One thing I've read - and heard, from reliable sources - is that if the deceased is positive for COVID-19 they count it as a covid death, even if they actually died from heart or kidney disease or some other cause. They've been inflating flu death statistics like this for years.

TET: LJR, You have it backwards in what we are seeing now. I know someone who had COPD, died of symptoms related to COVID19 but on the death certificate it says COPD. This means COVID19 numbers are likely underrepresented, and without more comprehensive testing, we’ll never know for sure.

LJR: TET, You'd better inform NPR then.
TET:LJR, https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/2973481001
Fact check: Is US coronavirus death toll inflated? Experts agree it's likely the opposite
usatoday.com

TET: “Deaths due to COVID-19 may be misclassified as pneumonia or influenza deaths in the absence of positive test results, and these conditions may appear on death certificates as a comorbid condition.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
    Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)
    cdc.gov

TC: It's become a deadly numbers game, almost assuredly a game we don't want to lose. This administration was given a game plan, it threw it away and is now winging it day by day with now plans in place to deal with the next pandemic.

RLPS: As I've mentioned elsewhere, these reopen protesters don’t see that they are pawns for multinational corporations and the elite 1%. Instead of trying to force governments to reopen economies, they should be working to apply pressure to test and track on a wide scale. Until that happens, we’re all riding a yo-yo.

GF: Look at the numbers, tremendous numbers, I have the best numbers, the number are far greater than anything you have ever seen before...

TS: Reliable figures are hard to come by. Different countries record their deaths in different ways. Here in the UK, until recently they have left out the care home statistics, which made a considerable difference.
As I understand it, in the USA one significant problem is that because of the high cost of medical treatment the poorest people have ducked medical treatment because of the cost and therefore have built up a catalogue of 'underlying conditions', it is these same 'underlying conditions' that will mark them out as victims of this highly contagious virus, thus the death rate of these highly vulnerable people will be astronomic! They may well die of these 'underlying conditions' as well as Covid-19, but how will it be reported?

JR: Two additional points: (1) the density under the curve is not symmetric so the risk ratios are not equal, e.g. relative risk of infection or death at day 10 pre peak does not equal the same risk 10 days post peak. Given that we see a right skew, the deaths post peak will be more infrequent but likely equal up to the peak (same number will die over a longer period).
(2) given that the likelihood ratios for antibody tests are no better than 1:2 right now, the true number of asymptotic but infected individuals is ostensibly a guess even with tests, so a dual peaked distribution (all of this ramping back up again) is a real possibility.

Brandon WilliamsCraig: This conversation is not public at this time. Can it be so it may be shared? If not, may I reproduce it somewhere with names rendered as initials?

TET: Brandon WilliamsCraig, absolutely

EVM: Also consider that we well may NOT be at the top of the Curve as of yet.

AMI: Here is a fb friend’s analysis:
https://www.facebook.com/1466350593/posts/10223245773280408/?d=n
[copied in]
JC: My friend, AN, asked me about a week ago if I still believed we would see a million (or more) dead in the US from CV19. At that time I told him I was wavering. Over this last week, I have learned some new things about how the disease presents in statistics. The new calculus is this:
Let's say we have 100 people who test positive for the disease. It appears, based on several independent studies, that of that 100 only 40 will show any signs of being sick. It also looks like the mortality rate among the ones who are symptomatic is relatively high - between 8% and 20%. These are preliminary numbers that are likely to change over time, because this disease is still only a few months old and testing, at least in the US, is abysmal. We also need to have a reliable antibody test in order to see who's been exposed and how long immunity lasts after recovery.

Bottom line, though, on estimates of the number of dead USians from CV19, I think I may be back up in the million range. Spain and France continue to climb the deaths/million plot at an alarming rate with 428 nd 296 respectively. Both are about 14 days ahead of the US on the infection curve. We're at almost 120. If we're at 300 in two weeks (where France is now), that will mean there will be almost a hundred thousand dead here in the US. Even if we're only at 200 (deaths/million) - two-thirds of France's level and only 80 more than we are right now (which seems very unlikely) - that will mean 66,000+ dead [dramatic pause] just by the end of April.

God forbid, we might be where Spain is and still climbing, as they are. If that is our destiny we'll be at nearly 150,000 dead by the end of the month. Then we still have the months that follow, until an interventional therapy or vaccine comes to our rescue. 150K dead by the end of this month followed by, say, twelve additional months at a steady pace of 50K per month - remember, "flattened curve" doesn't mean people stop dying it means the number who die each month doesn't continue to climb - we will be at three-quarters of a million dead this time next year.

Meanwhile, there are those who say the death toll is an acceptable loss to get our economy up and running again. What they don't say is that getting back to work will blow my numbers, above, out of the water. Remember that *those* numbers were based on us continuing to do what we've been doing to "flatten the curve." If we stop our efforts to flatten the curve, we might find ourselves back in the million-plus or even multi-millions dead arena. May THAT never be.

Stay at home. If you have to go out, wear a face covering and wash your hands often. If it starts to feel difficult (the staying at home) try to remember whose life you may be putting at risk by going out.

.