60% of US states are reporting increases in new cases

  • Thread starter Thread starter RidgeSprinter
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Since there is so much about Covid19 that is still unknown, I will offer my own speculation. The current situation may be like measles when I was young. Measles is insanely contagious and almost everyone got it in childhood before there was a vaccine. Almost every child recovered within two weeks, but it was more serious when adults got it. It was very deadly to populations that had never been exposed at all, like Native Americans and the Hawaiian people.

The bad new is that we are all in that group that has never been exposed to Covid19. Most of us will be infected, masks or not. Healthy people may not even have symptoms, or very mild symptoms. Elderly, diabetic, the obese, smokers, and immune suppressed populations, will fare worse. The good news is that with our advanced medical knowledge detection and treatment are rapidly improving, and eventually a vaccine will be available. Will the vaccine be 100% effective? Sorry about that. The seasonal influenza vaccine varries greatly in effectiveness as the virus mutates frequently.
 
Jeanne_S said:
This in a nutshell. Chalk it up to youthful naïveté thinking they are impervious to this virus. At any rate they overwhelmingly aren’t as affected as other age groups. Let them out build herd immunity,somewhat
Click to expand...
While they are busy building herd immunity some of them are left with brain damage, kidney failure, etc. and they are speeding up the deaths of their grandparents and other people’s grandparents. Oh, and some of them will die from it too.
 
It appears at the severity of the illness might be related to the quantity of viral particles are exposed to, at least according to some medical sources. Any reduction in exposure a virus particles may reduce the severity of the illness, as well as infectivity. The mask is there to protect others as well as yourself.
 
Even if it’s partially effective, it would help if it reduces the severity of the illness For that individual and reduces the spread.
 
This has been said so many times, I am surprised it has to keep being repeated. In addition to this, tear gas and pepper spray are designed to maximize concentration of particles. When it is used, it those on the receiving end know of it, the first thing they do is don makeshift masks, with which they function remarkably well, though the eyes are just as blinded.
 
This is assuming that once infected people who recover can’t get reinfected.

There’s a lot that we don’t know yet about the virus. One of them is its rate of mutation. Will it be like the flu virus which mutates once a year or will it be more like the cold virus which mutates all the time?

Notice that there is no vaccine for the common cold.
 
Last edited:
So what’s your solution? Shut down the country indefinitely.? Hide from this virus ? I understand it’s a real conundrum as to how to proceed with this issue,
 
Part of that is that there are many viruses that cause the cold.

Even if they isolate a number of viruses and get a vaccine for those, other viruses also cause a common cold.

It’s not that significant of an illness to vaccinate against.
 
Peaceable said:
It appears at the severity of the illness might be related to the quantity of viral particles are exposed to, at least according to some medical sources. Any reduction in exposure a virus particles may reduce the severity of the illness, as well as infectivity. The mask is there to protect others as well as yourself.
Click to expand...
We need to factor in that they now think 40-60% have partial immunity, covid tests are also finding viral leftovers from prior coronavises a person had in the past, death rate is now near that of the flu, we are learning how better to treat the illness if one is hospitalized, and t=0 was far earlier than anyone knew.

Open up everything…
 
Jeanne_S said:
So what’s your solution? Shut down the country indefinitely.? Hide from this virus ? I understand it’s a real conundrum as to how to proceed with this issue,
Click to expand...
“My” solution is not mine. It is to follow the advice of the public health officials, which is to take reasonable measures to limit the spread of the virus, like wearing masks whenever possible at indoor public gatherings, massively increase testing, contact tracing, and isolation for those infected, etc. Just go to the CDC website. It is all laid out there. If we do all those things, a broad-based shutdown of business will be unnecessary, so it is a false dichotomy to assume that there is nothing we can do other than shut down the economy. If we do slow the spread of the virus we might delay the worst of the outbreak until a vaccine is found, or better treatments are found. We have already massively improved the odds for those affected from the way we were treating victims in March and April. There is no reason to think that medical knowledge will not progress even further.
 
buffalo said:
death rate is now near that of the flu,
Click to expand...
This is not true.

Please, people do not believe fringe ideas you find on the internet. Do a little research away from these political websites that tickle the ears of their target audience. This is not “the flu” or anything like the flu.
 
WingedHussar said:
So riddle me this. Tear gas particles are significantly bigger than Wuhan virus particles and you need a gas mask to avoid breathing them in. Mind telling me how a cloth mask provides anything other than a false sense of security?
Click to expand...
The virus is spread as part of liquid droplets expelled from mouth and nose, not as individual airborne viruses. Even a t-shirt mask will help reduce transmission as follows. None of these are 100%, but they combine to tip the odds towards reduced spread of the virus.
  • you are less likely to touch your mouth and nose while wearing a mask. This may stop you from infecting yourself after touching the virus on a surface, or the converse of putting the virus on your hands to spread with others.
  • A DIY mask does some filtering but more importantly it reduces spread if someone is expelling the virus. Think of it like a snow break that catches droplets and reduces the spread distance of those it doesn’t catch. There are plenty of videos that illustrate this point.
There is also a useful theater aspect, the use of masks reminds people to be on-guard and not just slip back into pre pandemic habits of distancing etc.


This is a good link that goes into how effective different fabrics are

smartairfilters.com

Best Materials for Making DIY Face Masks - Smart Air

As a last resort, DIY masks provide more protection than nothing. Researchers tested household materials. These two materials captured the most particles.
smartairfilters.com

And a visualization on droplet spread with and without masks

www.livescience.com

Visualization shows exactly how face masks stop COVID-19 transmission

Without a mask, droplets produced during coughing can travel up to 12 feet. With a mask, this distance is reduced to just a few inches.
www.livescience.com www.livescience.com
 
Last edited:
pnewton said:
This is not true.

Please, people do not believe fringe ideas you find on the internet. Do a little research away from these political websites that tickle the ears of their target audience. This is not “the flu” or anything like the flu.
Click to expand...
Not a fringe idea. I did a little research as you suggested. I’ll start with numbers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and pull numbers from elsewhere as needed. KFF is not a fringe site

Kaiser numbers are as of 7/17.
Total deaths: 140,294
Deaths in long term care facilities (LTCF): 56,143
Number of states that are reporting deaths in LTCF’s: 42
Percentage of LTCF deaths out of total deaths for those 42 states: 44%

140,294 x 44% = 61,729 estimate LTCF deaths
140,294 x 56% = 78,564 estimate non-LTCF deaths

approximate percentage of LTCF patients in total US population: 1.7%
approximate percentage of non-LFCF patients in total US population: 98.3%

US population estimate: 331m
approximate estimate of LTCF population in the US: 5.6m
approximate estimate of everyone else in the US: 325.3m

Now we get down to the nitty gritty of calculating a mortality rate for each population:
mortality rate in LTCF: 1.09% <— everyone thinks we’re dying at this rate
mortality rate in non-LTCF: 0.02% <---- actual rate we’re dying at outside of LTCF

That is 0.02% for everyone not living in an LTCF. Break it down by age and one will find this a lot lower for those under 45. This is pretty much in line with predictions made by Stanford Professor John Ioannides back in March.

Now for a little flu perspective:
1957 flu pandemic:
total US population: 177.7m
total flu deaths: ~91,000 (estimates range from 69k to 113k, just took the midpt)
extrapolate deaths to 2020 population: ~169,500

1968 flu pandemic:
total US population: 205.8m
total flu deaths: ~100,000
extrapolate deaths to 2020 population: ~161,000

As one can see, in terms of total deaths, we’re already there. But remember 44% of our deaths have been of the most vulnerable part of our population: our LTCF residents. So in terms of the rest of us, we still have a long way to go to approach per capita deaths in 1957 and 1968.

So I would call this worse than the bad flu year because it is still ongoing, but not that much worse. Only looks a lot worse because of the degree to which we locked down the healthy. Something we never did in 1957 and 1968. Plus the extent to which we did not protect the elderly.

So people say lockdowns are working. Well hold your horses, explain NY, NJ, CT and MA, they all locked down and they still got hit. The lesson is that lockdown or no lockdown, we are going to have to get through it everywhere until it stabilizes like NY and NJ.

You wanna call this fringe, fine, but you need to back it up.
 
pnewton said:
This is not true.

Please, people do not believe fringe ideas you find on the internet. Do a little research away from these political websites that tickle the ears of their target audience. This is not “the flu” or anything like the flu.
Click to expand...
What is the current known death rate?
 
buffalo said:
they now think 40-60% have partial immunity, covid tests are also finding viral leftovers from prior coronavises a person had in the past,…
Open up everything…
Click to expand...
In this clip Dr Chris Martenson discusses sections of the virus that are common to some other coronaviruses, especially the ORF1 regions. There is some thought that the immune system’s T Cells–long term memory–is helpful to some people. The immune system memory may be remembering previous coronavirus exposures resulting in more mild cases of Covid19.

The T cell angle on Covid is different than typical vaccines. My understanding is that the history of vaccines for coronaviruses is very disappointing. So maybe they are on to something more helpful as they explore T cell related science.

I agree that there are encouraging aspects to Covid19.

There are encouraging studies of steroids, etc for latter phase and hydroxycloroquine for early phase suggesting a dramatic reduction in the death rate is possible. Dr Marik, Chief of Critical Care Medicine E. Virginia Med School, explains in this 5 minute clip and in greater depth earlier in the long video.

There is encouraging data from a study of an anti-inflammatory medication and quite a few studies warning against vitamin D deficiency.

They know not to overuse intubation/ventilators and know not to send positive patients into unprepared nursing homes as was frequently done in New York : (

We don’t have the shortages of masks and protective gear that we had months ago. I was going to add tests to my previous sentence but the tests are so inaccurate that I wonder how helpful they really are. Dr Birx explains here.

However I am still concerned about the % positive cases among youths–the blue-grey and red lines in the graph below. I understand that the death rate among youths is near 0, but they can still add to hospital utilization.

So I like the restrictions on bars and would like to see more limitations on protests, I but also like the reopening of most of the economy, including reopening of schools with various protections.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

There is more on the rate of positive tests here, including WHO recommendation.
 
Last edited:
Along the lines of potential alternative treatments, there is this interesting tidbit about a cholesterol lowering drug showing some potential in early research.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Cholesterol drug could reduce coronavirus to the common cold

Scientists working in Jerusalem and New York believe that may have found a surprising treatment for COVID-19 - a cholesterol-lowering drug which makes the virus weaker.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Based on this article at MedicalXpress

medicalxpress.com

Cholesterol-lowering meds have potential to downgrade COVID-19's threat to that of the common cold

Could a simple drug that has been on the market for decades be used to treat COVID-19? A research team led by Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Professor Yaakov Nahmias says that early research looks promising; their findings appear in this week's Cell Press Sneak Peak.
medicalxpress.com medicalxpress.com

The usual caveat of needing further clinical study applies. But if it proves out, it could be very helpful to a particular class of vulnerable patients: those with high blood sugar and high cholesterol. I should think this would include diabetics who we know are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.
 
Catholics do not believe in euthanizing the elderly because we consider their lives as valuable. So, if you pull out the most vulnerable, as you did, you can get a much lower death rate for those who are younger and healthier. However, that was not what was claimed. What was claimed was that the COVID was like the flu, not that we write off the elderly.

An honest comparison would compare total numbers, or if the elderly and sick are separated for the COVID rate, then that rate cannot be compared to a flu rate that included the elderly and the infirm.

I do think it is easy to see COVID worse than it is. Some do. Yes, it is a little worse than the worse flu year since the Spanish Flu, which was worse. But that is literally picking the worst cases. If your point is to show some balance to the doom and gloom, some glimmer of hope as it were, then it does that. Most people here, if they get COVID and are symptomatic, will face a fairly low 1-2% mortality rate. But understand that there are also those here that will face the 5-10% mortality rate.

Oh, and backing up a conspiracy de-bunk is not possible, as everyone who has dealt with this knows.
 
The current death rate for the year in the United State is 3.72%. The current death rate for this date could not be know without a longitudinal study to see how many infected this day die in the upcoming weeks.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top