Coronavirus

[dfwatt]

And yet, with all the treatments, they still die at a high death rate.

What's your point? There is no definitive treatment for covid-19. There's no vaccinations, and a significant percentage of elderly patients particularly those with classic comorbidities are going to die. Are you suggesting that we shouldn't treat them? In other words anyone over say age 60 who gets ill from covid-19 we should just consider them a lost cause?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The total cost will end up being what? $10 trillion?

Where is this number coming from? The analyses I have seen have estimated around $100B for the cost of effectively eliminating the virus in the United States. It's possible it could be a bit more of course, but not two orders of magnitude more. So that cost is in the noise - and it doesn't account for the benefits at all! Clearly there are significant economic benefits to being essentially free of COVID-19 in a month (we could be there already if we had wanted to be!).

 

[dqd88]

I could retire and my progeny for 100 generations would be set if I did.

How Trumpian of you

If the US population would exercise and not be fat, their death rates from cardiovascular disease would be gone (heart attacks are rare in countries not on a "western" diet).

The first part is true. But the 2nd part is a bit shortsighted - heart disease is relatively low in France (high saturated fat) and relatively high in India (non-western diet). Lifestyle, and other factors like ancillary foods (are you accompanying that burger with fries or broccoli) and quality of food (is that grass fed or highly processed), play a big part in heart disease risk.

 

[dqd88]

Where is this number coming from? The analyses I have seen have estimated around $100B for the cost of eliminating the virus in the United States. It's possible it could be a bit more of course, but not two orders of magnitude more. So that cost is in the noise - since it doesn't account for the benefits at all. Clearly there are significant economic benefits to being essentially free of COVID-19 in a month (we could be there already if we had wanted to be!).

I'm talking about the total cost, including the cost of lost revenue due to shutting down businesses. That is the totality of the cost. The increase to the national debt, after the dust settles, will be what?

 

[bkp_duke]

The first part is true. But the 2nd part is a bit shortsighted - heart disease is relatively low in France (high saturated fat) and relatively high in India (non-western diet). Lifestyle, and other factors like ancillary foods (are you accompanying that burger with fries or broccoli) and quality of food (is that grass fed or highly processed), play a big part in heart disease risk.

India is FAR from a non-western diet. They were 20 years ago, but it's become progressively more processed food in the past 20 years.

A western diet does not mean "meat and potatoes" it basically means fast food and fast food equivalents. I.e. HIGHLY processed. The "meat" component is actually the least important for heart disease.

Western pattern diet - Wikipedia

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I'm talking about the total cost, including the cost of lost revenue due to shutting down businesses. That is the totality of the cost. The increase to the national debt, after the dust settles, will be what?

you are ok paying your fair share of the cost of limit Covid deaths right?
Kids and the poor can't pay. Your bill is proportionate to your income.
The total cost will end up being what? $10 trillion?

What are you talking about? You were referring to the cost of limiting the deaths. Obviously it doesn't cost $10T if you don't shut down. I don't think you're listening. You just don't have the virus circulating in the country and then you don't have to be shut down anymore and economic activity is near normal. (See my prior posts about shutting down earlier, etc., etc.) And, bonus, you have limited COVID deaths to the minimum value. That's what I wanted. And I continue to recommend it, because "opening up" is going to be a very sad state of affairs if we haven't eliminated the virus.

This is not complicated.

EDIT: Up to 454k tests today (not including antibody tests), with 5% positive rate. So there is hope for the "eliminate the virus" strategy, as long as we continue to trend this direction on tests and positive rate. The question is: what will be (was) the impact of opening up over Memorial Day weekend? Will it result in a strong enough surge in cases to outstrip the ability of the test capacity to suppress it? I hope the answer is no. For testing, we're only about a factor of 3 from where we need to be for the current number of new cases being generated per day (about 100k). If we are even slightly suppressing the virus, the testing requirements will continue to trend down and we may "meet in the middle" and have sufficient coverage. It's going to be an interesting thing to watch.

Caveats here: The COVID Tracking Project on Twitter

 

[madodel]

Great. The govt is happy to hear that you are on board.
Now, the govt has decided that, instead of borrowing and paying off the bill at a later date, that it will send you a bill directly, immediately. Cool?

I mean, you're still ok with "suppressing the virus" even if the cost is payed by you now rather than later right? Or are you only ok with it if it's paid later?

That would have easily been the least costly option, but it would have required having a functioning test and quarantining people who came to this country. They did nothing but claim they stopped travel from China (which was only half-assed) and nothing about checking anyone else or following up on the people we knew were sick. COVID-19 made it even harder because people could be shedding virus without any symptoms, so a reliable test was the most important thing to have developed and from what I read 5 months into this and we still don't have that. The result is the trillions that have been wasted on keeping the stock market shored up, mostly because a bunch of pantywaists can't deal with social distancing and wearing masks to stop the spread.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

reliable test was the most important thing to have developed and from what I read 5 months into this and we still don't have that

The PCR test we have is reliable enough to stop the spread (presumed positive contacts will also be subject to quarantine, so marginal positive cases don't necessarily have to always be identified definitively). We just need much more capacity at the current time, especially if we want to resume "normal" activity. The Abbott POC "instant" isothermal test is a bit less reliable from what I understand, but it's still quite good.

Obviously it would be better to have a perfectly sensitive test, but it's not required to eliminate the virus.

 

[dqd88]

India is FAR from a non-western diet. They were 20 years ago, but it's become progressively more processed food in the past 20 years.

A western diet does not mean "meat and potatoes" it basically means fast food and fast food equivalents. I.e. HIGHLY processed. The "meat" component is actually the least important for heart disease.

Western pattern diet - Wikipedia

They do not eat much meat, esp red meat. It is a mostly a plant based diet.
The food pyramid that you learned is school is mostly outdated and bad science.
We have been over-carbed. Not enough fats. The low fat craze of the 80s and 90s only made things worse.
Fats are good for you as recent studies have discovered.
Also, fasting is good.

 

[SageBrush]

They did nothing but claim they stopped travel from China (which was only half-assed) and nothing about checking anyone else or following up on the people we knew were sick.

More details about the one thing trump did not get completely wrong -- although he tried real hard

• Hundreds of thousands of travelers entered the USA from China during February before the ban was imposed.
• Europe was already sick, but the travel ban from Europe started later and did not include those parts of Europe with trump commercial interests

 

[madodel]

The PCR test we have is reliable enough to stop the spread (presumed positive contacts will also be subject to quarantine, so marginal positive cases don't necessarily have to always be identified definitively). We just need much more capacity at the current time, especially if we want to resume "normal" activity. The Abbott POC "instant" isothermal test is a bit less reliable from what I understand, but it's still quite good.

Obviously it would be better to have a perfectly sensitive test, but it's not required to eliminate the virus.

We had no reliable test 4-5 months ago. I know I'm a broken record but the CDC is a hollow shell of its former success. I've heard the Abbott is abysmal unless they have fixed it. My wife says it's a coin flip. Abbott claimed the users are the problem. Maybe it was. The thing is all of this should have been in place along with PPE 4-5 months ago. They did nothing to prepare. Had they been prepared and not lied to everyone none of this would have been as bad. I know you know this. I'm just venting.

 

[SVMike]

There are a bunch of good public policy measures we could implement that would cost me more in taxes (which I would happily pay), which would overall lead to lower costs for me, a higher quality of life, a longer life, and a higher income.

But this is kind of off-topic for the coronavirus thread so we should not discuss further. The hypothetical is so vague it's very hard to say.

I have no problem paying more in taxes, that's for darn sure, especially if it's for a good cause, helps me out and helps others out, and the tax structure is equitable.

In the spirit of the original question...then you are OK with the government taking 95% or even 100% of your salary since they will use it for a good cause? In return the government provides everything they deem necessary for you?
good cause...check
helps you out...check
helps others...check
equitable...check (gov takes everyone's pay)

Me? No thanks.

 

[dhanson865]

week 1 on this is around Apr 1 when the SAH order came out for my location. Week 2 was our local peak of new cases and Week 3 was still quite active. Week 5 was the local minimum so they started talking about opening back up. Week 6 is when we opened up phase 1 ( May 1st on an upslope of new cases because people rushed out before phase one officially began), Week 10 is the current week and isn't over yet so that number will rise but is also the week that we opened up even more for phase 2 (May 26 also on an upslope of new cases).

I really don't understand why they can't see the need to close back down when they see the upslopes after phase 1 (or at least not open up further). Why am I sitting here at the beginning of phase 2 / end of phase 1 with less restrictions in place after looking at more new cases than we had at the beginning of phase 1 with more restrictions? How high do new cases have to go before they pull back from phase 2 and lock it down again?

I get the impression they see the trend line going down and are ignoring the policy changes. Yep if you kept things closed down that trend line was decreasing, but you've reopened now and it will bounce back up.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Why am I sitting here at the beginning of phase 2 with less restrictions looking at more new cases than we had at the beginning of phase 1 with more restrictions? How high do new cases have to go before they pull back from phase 2 and lock it down again?

I would say those numbers are basically flat since week 6. And the fact that you're in phase 2 and haven't seen things explode is probably a good thing. I guess you'll see whether that holds.

On another topic, I found an interesting plot which I had not seen presented before (I haven't fact checked it, but it's from The Economist, so it is probably ok...). Years of life lost... There's a lot of info here, so spend some time perusing it. This is from Italians over 50.

About 11 years of life lost per death, on average.

Would most covid-19 victims have died soon, without the virus?

Original source:

COVID-19 – exploring the... | Wellcome Open Research

Eric Topol on Twitter

 

[SageBrush]

Well ! Even a faux news affilate in Utah has figured out that antibody testing is useless outside of Epidemiological studies.
Infectious disease doctor, state epidemiologist, CDC cast doubt on accuracy of COVID-19 antibody tests

I figure the antibody heros here cannot be more than a few months behind.

 

[bkp_duke]

They do not eat much meat, esp red meat. It is a mostly a plant based diet.
The food pyramid that you learned is school is mostly outdated and bad science.
We have been over-carbed. Not enough fats. The low fat craze of the 80s and 90s only made things worse.
Fats are good for you as recent studies have discovered.
Also, fasting is good.

Anyone else here amused that the random guy on a car forum is giving the MD with nearly a decade of work in a METABOLISM lab a lecture?




FWIW, you actually aren't too far off on what a "good" diet is. The food pyramid is not really that bad (the original version, that is composed of actual fruits, veggies, and grains), it's the processing of most foods that really makes them crap for our bodies. Complex carbs are really not that bad for you, but when you process them in to cane sugar (bad) or fructose (SUPER bad) then you completely change the fuel.

Same thing with fats. Most medium chain fats are healthy for the human body. But partially hydrogenated oils / fats are as bad as you can get for the human body. Those bad boys put even high fructose corn syrup to shame in terms of the amount of damage they wreak on our blood vessels.


Anyway, last reply by me on this subject. You seem to want to split hairs to try to find something to argue about and this is getting further afield from SARS-CoV-2.

 

[bkp_duke]

In the spirit of the original question...then you are OK with the government taking 95% or even 100% of your salary since they will use it for a good cause? In return the government provides everything they deem necessary for you?
good cause...check
helps you out...check
helps others...check
equitable...check (gov takes everyone's pay)

Me? No thanks.

But you and I live in CA. Does that mean we are OK with them taking . . . 50-55%? Asking for a friend.

 

[dhanson865]

I would say those numbers are basically flat since week 6. And the fact that you're in phase 2 and haven't seen things explode is probably a good thing.

If you take into account incubation periods we are still "in phase 1", while phase 2 started two days ago we haven't had time for phase 2 incubations to turn in to new cases.

That's why I'm looking at SAH vs Phase 1 now. We still have 2 more days left in this week of phase one numbers. It'll be another week or two before we have any idea about phase 2.

 

[jerry33]

In the spirit of the original question...then you are OK with the government taking 95% or even 100% of your salary since they will use it for a good cause? In return the government provides everything they deem necessary for you?
good cause...check
helps you out...check
helps others...check
equitable...check (gov takes everyone's pay)

Me? No thanks.

That's pretty silly, the worst country takes about 50% and many take less. If we're talking about the average person between state and Federal they take about 35% and if you add the $5K for the employee portion of the healthcare (and maybe more if you also have vision and hearing), it works out to about 50% here. Basically, all that happens with single payer is the $5K gets shifted from the employer to the government. Of course, this assumes that the person in charge of the program is not out to destroy the program--like all the heads of the various departments are today.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If you take into account incubation periods we are still "in phase 1", while phase 2 started a two days ago we haven't had time for phase 2 incubations to turn in to new cases.

For sure. Like I said, you'll see! I'm just saying I can think of ways for your plot of local cases to look worse! It'll all depend on how well people continue to follow the recommendations, while resuming their regular activities.