Flatten the Curve or Eliminate the Virus?

[Mama Noodle]

5 minutes ago, chessman said:

Flu deaths are only that high when mortality data is analysed after that flu season has finished. The running totals are always much lower. You are comparing the low Covid total (the running total) with the high flu total. When mortality is analysed for Covid the real number will certainly much higher. You can read about that here.

 

Im comparing them for perspective. I am not saying one is worse than the other, I'm simply comparing statistics and deaths and trying to establish a baseline for the "If it saves just one life" crew.

 

7 minutes ago, chessman said:

Also, things are opening up (slowly) in many many places, no?

 

Some places yes, and others (like the USA) have some people absolutely freaking out. USA for example it was sold as "Flattening the Curve" and has now transitioned by some to "Testing and Tracing" before restrictions can be lifted - which is absurd. 

[tlock]

1 minute ago, sead said:

You are eliminating the virus by flattenng the curve, Its easier to handle

people still get H1N1.  we never eliminated it. 

[chessman]

For those who argue that the economy crashing will cost a lot more lives it is interesting to note that during the Great Depression life expectancy actually increased in the USA. 
 

https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-expectancy

 

this is not to say that the consequences will not be terrible for many people but there is no clear link between times of financial hardship and increased mortality.

[chessman]

1 minute ago, Mama Noodle said:

I'm simply comparing statistics and deaths

Yes but you are comparing statistics that are compiled in different ways. Please read the article I posted. It is very short and informative.

[CygnusX1]

1 hour ago, RJRS1301 said:

Link to factual information on that assertion would be helpful

To my knowledge not one suicide in the past 8 weeks has been directly related to the "lockdowns" in Australia.

I have researched as many health department and support agencies websites, so please post a factual link to this.

Forecast suicides, not enough time elapsed yet to look at actual suicides -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8293233/Far-people-Australia-predicted-die-suicide-coronavirus-lockdown.html

(article discusses prediction from Sydney University “Mind and Brain” centre.)

I’m guessing that most of us posters are retired and on pensions, so we don’t appreciate what people go through who’ve just lost their jobs or businesses.

[Mama Noodle]

1 minute ago, chessman said:

Yes but you are comparing statistics that are compiled in different ways. Please read the article I posted. It is very short and informative.

 

Doesn't matter how they are compiled and I already told you that Im not comparing them for the purposes of saying one is worse than the other, if you read my posts you would see that. 

 

4 minutes ago, chessman said:

For those who argue that the economy crashing will cost a lot more lives it is interesting to note that during the Great Depression life expectancy actually increased in the USA. 
 

https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-expectancy

 

this is not to say that the consequences will not be terrible for many people but there is no clear link between times of financial hardship and increased mortality.

 

Im sure if you asked anyone during the great depression if they wanted to continue being ruined and broke and hungry, with the upside they might live an extra 2 years, they'd laugh in your face. 

[Mama Noodle]

5 minutes ago, CygnusX1 said:

I’m guessing that most of us posters are retired and on pensions, so we don’t appreciate what people go through who’ve just lost their jobs or businesses.

 

But that doesn't stop most people sneering and getting hysterical for others wanting to get back to work. 

[johnnybangkok]

20 minutes ago, lkv said:

Most did not keep themselves fit and healthy, it's not my problem.

 

It will only become my problem if ICU's are overloaded.

 

I read every label of a product in a supermarket that I buy, for nutritional values.

 

And anyway, whoever is afraid to go out, please lock yourselves in the house and ask social services to bring food over and leave it at the door.

Ahhh the old 'I'm alright so <deleted> everyone else' philosophy. Nice.

[CygnusX1]

6 minutes ago, chessman said:

For those who argue that the economy crashing will cost a lot more lives it is interesting to note that during the Great Depression life expectancy actually increased in the USA. 
 

https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-expectancy

 

this is not to say that the consequences will not be terrible for many people but there is no clear link between times of financial hardship and increased mortality.

Very interesting article, but on reading it I don’t think it quite supports your position as strongly as you think. For instance, some of the increase in life expectancy was because of fewer car accidents and less cigarette smoking, due to poverty. There was also an increase in the suicide rate, supporting one of my posts above.

If you google “life expectancy vs income”, you’ll find innumerable articles showing there’s a strong link.

[chessman]

6 minutes ago, Mama Noodle said:

Some places yes, and others (like the USA) have some people absolutely freaking out. USA for example it was sold as "Flattening the Curve" and has now transitioned by some to "Testing and Tracing" before restrictions can be lifted - which is absurd. 

It makes sense to me that things don’t open up until there is a clear downward trend in numbers and there is enough testing capability to contact trace effectively.
 

Unfortunately, a lot of people would have followed what their politicians told them to do, stayed at home, shut their businesses and this helped reduce numbers of new cases and deaths. They carried out their side of the deal but now the leaders haven’t organised that increase in testing that was needed. It’s a horrible situation. 

[Matzzon]

On 5/8/2020 at 4:05 PM, Mama Noodle said:

The goal was never to keep people from dying, the goal was to stretch those deaths out over time so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed. That was the goal.

How do you know that? Just because you attach a diagram to the post? I am pretty sure there are other versions out there of what the goal is or was. I think it´s more how you chose to interpret and understand the situation.

[CygnusX1]

32 minutes ago, chessman said:

Flu deaths are only that high when mortality data is analysed after that flu season has finished. The running totals are always much lower. You are comparing the low Covid total (the running total) with the high flu total. When mortality is analysed for Covid the real number will certainly much higher. You can read about that here.

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

Now that’s another interesting article. It effectively says, well, we’ve actually been lying about the number of flu deaths. We greatly inflated them to encourage people to get flu shots, but the lie has now become awkward when people have started to compare China virus deaths with flu deaths.

According to articles in Wikipedia and the CDC, there were a million deaths from the 1968 Hong Kong flu. Are you saying this figure was greatly exaggerated as well?

[cyril sneer]

6 minutes ago, Matzzon said:

How do you know that? Just because you attach a diagram to the post? I am pretty sure there are other versions out there of what the goal is or was. I think it´s more how you chose to interpret and understand the situation.

give it a rest

[Mama Noodle]

11 minutes ago, chessman said:

It makes sense to me that things don’t open up until there is a clear downward trend in numbers and there is enough testing capability to contact trace effectively.

 

But again, that is not how it was sold to the population. It was sold as flattening the curve and most people panicked and probably agreed it was a good idea. Nothing about "we are going to lockdown until we can test 45 million people a week" 

 

And now there's 30+ million Americans out of work. 

 

15 minutes ago, chessman said:

Unfortunately, a lot of people would have followed what their politicians told them to do, stayed at home, shut their businesses and this helped reduce numbers of new cases and deaths. They carried out their side of the deal but now the leaders haven’t organised that increase in testing that was needed. It’s a horrible situation. 

 

Thats shifting the goalposts. Again, the whole point of the thread which you breathlessly shifted to without question. 

[johnnybangkok]

59 minutes ago, Mama Noodle said:

 

Nobody cared in 2017-2018 when upwards of 80,000 people died of the flu. 

 

Nobody cares when 250,000 - 800,000 people die globally every year from the flu. 

 

That is not a false equivalent, those are hard facts presented for perspective and context. 

 

Nobody is going around murdering grandmothers so you can lay off the hysterics.

As has already been pointed out by Chessman, you are taking yearly death totals and trying to compare them to 2 months of C19 data, however lets run with your false equivalence (because that's what it is) and extrapolate things out. The highest number of worldwide deaths for flu is estimated at 650,000 (not 800,000)   https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2017/flu/en/ and that's the very highest as and even though its actually between 250,000 and 650,000, for the sake of argument lets take the highest number of 650k. So far C19 is responsible for 280,000 deaths (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/) WITH LOCKDOWN. If we extrapolate that out for a year then that's 1,680,000, more than 2.5 times the death rate of flu AND THAT'S WITH LOCKDOWN and taking the highest flu total. If we take the lowest of 250k then it's 7 times this number. A new report just out from the Imperial College of London estimates that without intense government intervention, the novel coronavirus could infect 7 billion people and kill 40 million this year, (https://www.businessinsider.com/covid19-model-predicts-40-million-people-could-die-without-interventions-2020-3). I'm not going to try and say this would have happened as of course this is just modelling but to any sane person looking at what the experts are saying, this very real and very dangerous pandemic has the potential to be in the Spanish Flu kind of numbers unless drastic measures are taken.

The time for containing this has well and truly past and once it's all over, heads should roll but this continued attemp to try and compare this to flu or other similar worldwide killers is spurious at best, downright neglegent at worse.

 

[amexpat]

On 5/8/2020 at 7:51 PM, Mama Noodle said:

At least in the USA that hasn't happened. Nobody who needed care was unable to get care.

Doctors described the awful decisions they had to make about who would get treatment and who would have to be left to die.  

 

On 5/8/2020 at 7:51 PM, Mama Noodle said:

and the most venerable are the highest risk. 

Ya think? 

[johnnybangkok]

29 minutes ago, CygnusX1 said:

Forecast suicides, not enough time elapsed yet to look at actual suicides -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8293233/Far-people-Australia-predicted-die-suicide-coronavirus-lockdown.html

(article discusses prediction from Sydney University “Mind and Brain” centre.)

I’m guessing that most of us posters are retired and on pensions, so we don’t appreciate what people go through who’ve just lost their jobs or businesses.

I employ 45 people, have had to let 10 of them go already and I'm expecting more. I am VERY aware of the consequences of the lockdown but still believe it's the best thing for society. 

[Mama Noodle]

3 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

I'm not going to try and say this would have happened as of course this is just modelling but to any sane person looking at what the experts are saying, this very real and very dangerous pandemic has the potential to be in the Spanish Flu kind of numbers unless drastic measures are taken.

The time for containing this has well and truly past and once it's all over, heads should roll but this continued attemp to try and compare this to flu or other similar worldwide killers is spurious at best, downright neglegent at worse.

 

I dont know what it is with you guys. Is it reading comprehension? Is it anger? What is it that makes you people not understand written words? 

I am not comparing it to the flu for the purposes of disregarding the virus. I am not saying that covid 19 is "just the flu" and am simply showing and providing statistical facts on basic flu deaths for the purposes of bringing into perspective how many people die with no one giving a <deleted>. 

 

Can you understand those 2 paragraphs? Im not sure I can write it any simpler for you. 

[CygnusX1]

7 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

A new report just out from the Imperial College of London estimates that without intense government intervention, the novel coronavirus could infect 7 billion people and kill 40 million this year, (https://www.businessinsider.com/covid19-model-predicts-40-million-people-could-die-without-interventions-2020-3).

Apologies if I’ve missed something here, but “new report”? Article seems to be dated 28 March. Similar article published around the same time claimed best case scenario for Australia was 50,000 deaths (currently just under 100).

[Mama Noodle]

5 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

I employ 45 people, have had to let 10 of them go already and I'm expecting more. I am VERY aware of the consequences of the lockdown but still believe it's the best thing for society. 

 

In other words, you are staying afloat but your 10 employees are not. Be interesting to get the perspective of your 10 recently laid off employees into this discussion. 

[Matzzon]

34 minutes ago, cyril sneer said:

give it a rest

Why would I do that? Do everybody have an obligation to agree with the OP in this post? Have you invented that? Do you not believe there is many people out in the world that have another version or think the goal is something totally different? Are all people same to you, and do you also believe they all think same? At last, if they do not fall in your box , then they should give it a rest. When did you become the judge?

Edited May 10, 2020 by Matzzon

[rwill]

Late 1968 to early 1070 the Hong Kong Flu pandemic was happening.  It killed around a million people worldwide.  It is still part of the annual flu epidemics.  This new virus isn't going to be eliminated either. 

Back then they did stuff like this:  Woodstock for one.  

[chessman]

43 minutes ago, Mama Noodle said:

am simply showing and providing statistical facts on basic flu deaths for the purposes of bringing into perspective how many people die with no one giving a <deleted>. 

Did you read the article I linked to?
 

the running total of flu deaths is really much much lower every year. 

[chessman]

1 hour ago, CygnusX1 said:

Very interesting article, but on reading it I don’t think it quite supports your position as strongly as you think. For instance, some of the increase in life expectancy was because of fewer car accidents and less cigarette smoking, due to poverty. There was also an increase in the suicide rate, supporting one of my posts above.

If you google “life expectancy vs income”, you’ll find innumerable articles showing there’s a strong link.

Yes, suicides went up but most other causes of death went down. I have seen many posts in this forum making the assumption that economic depressions kill a lot of people. I offered this article as food for thought. My position is right in the middle I think. We have to open the economy but we must be incredibly cautious. Most countries are now taking steps to open up.

[Max69xl]

On 5/8/2020 at 9:13 PM, 4MyEgo said:

I don't think I am missing the point, if hospital did get overwhelmed, more and more people would have been dying, including doctors and nurses who we need at the coalface.

What do you mean by "eliminate the virus"?  That's not possible, the closest is to get a vaccine developed for the coronavirus, not a cocktail of several vaccines that will work on some patients,but not on all. You haven't asked yourself why suddenly no one is talking about the common flu which kills >300k worldwide every year? 

[chessman]

1 hour ago, Mama Noodle said:

Thats shifting the goalposts. Again, the whole point of the thread which you breathlessly shifted to without question. 

so you would prefer for politicians to open things up, even if they believe that is the wrong thing to do?
 

to be honest, I’m amazed by what is happening in the USA at the moment. Trump, whose every instinct must be to open up, somehow isn’t doing it. 

[chessman]

6 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

You haven't asked yourself why suddenly no one is talking about the common flu which kills >300k worldwide every year? 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/
 

read this. Short and informative

[Donga]

What frustrates me, as someone who was comfortable with flattening the curve, is we don't seem to be adapting as we lean more about CV-19. It clearly is no where near as lethal as the experts were predicting just over 6 weeks ago. There were many models, but for simplicity let's stick with Imperial College with their 500,000 deaths projected for UK and 2.2 mill for US. And then look at Sweden with their 3,220 deaths.

More ammo - look at all the countries on or near the Equator and please don't tell me that countries like India and Indonesia can't count their CV-19 dead. They are around 2 to 4 deaths per mill compared to hundreds for the cold cold climes of northern Europe, the ones that haven't been doing their BCG inoculations for decades, though jury is still out on that. The exception to this is Ecuador on the Equator as well as Peru and Brazil, all doing it tough but still 1/4 deaths per mill than Spain, Italy, UK, France etc. CV-19 will transmit anywhere, given a chance, but clearly doesn't relish heat & humidity. Harvard conclusion is typically coy but the evidence is compelling... https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid19/home

"2nd waves" tend to come from immigrant dorms or a/c venues. Further, sunshine means vitamin D and they've shown those northern Europeans were generally Vit D deficient, cooped up in homes etc. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52371688

They should be able to open up economy more here and elsewhere by trusting the sun - so open air bars with sensible distancing (I'll still have my mask). Use the sun as is clearly our ally in this.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Donga

[Tropposurfer]

Perhaps what has happened in reference to your post is: No one, no one has any idea what the virus was about, and what has been learnt has come as things unfolded, none of this was ‘known’ until it happened. 
No one knew what was the best course of action nor how the virus would behave, mutate and spread. Everyone took steps based on previous virus experience.

Actions taken were often based on this past experience and worst case scenarios for fear that if they got their decisions wrong then worst case scenario millions may have died.

I don’t sense feel (no imperial evidence) that we as yet still don’t know what’s what.

I saw today the Mayor of NY disclose that small children are now being treated for what could be serious impacts of Covid on their immune systems, whereas a few days ago the world was talking of kids being fit the most part safe from morbidity.

I am no expert so as far as the counter argument and comparisons to seasonal flu fatalities I don’t know.

All I can say as a lay observer is that Covid 19 does not behave in anything like the same way flu viruses do and it is this infection behaviour that has caused such fear and alarm. 

[Ryan754326]

3 hours ago, Mama Noodle said:

 

I suspect that people who feel the way that he does about the virus have no skin in the game. Are retired/have a pension/don't have to worry about global economies. 

Just wait until their pension gets cut and the price of basic necessities rises due to inflation. 
Everybody says it won’t happen. I hope they’re right.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Ryan754326