6,337 New Covid-19 Infections 7/30, Extended Quarantine..?

[garryl]

Where have you been ?? it's high and the rate rate of increase is close to 30 % every 2 weeks?. In spite of the fact that number of tests in Argentina is not as important as in other places--?
A steep slope ! no Meseta yet and the City and Provincia keep pointing fingers at each other..!

I have been in a place where 7500 daily is a norm

 

[on the brink]

140+ days of quarantine - one starts to run out of hobbies and things to renovate around the home

My niece keeps busy tracking the inchworm population in her terrace planters.

 

[Alby]

To me, the biggest leap forward in recent weeks is that increasing numbers of doctors and scientists are now saying we need to stop thinking of Covid-19 as a respiratory virus (Bolsonaro's "little flu") but instead as a disease that enters via the respiratory tract and from there (if one's defenses aren't sufficient) goes on to attack other organs and systems. Once you get your head around that, debate about the death rate (which is time has shown to be quite low, and certainly not the alarming figures of up to 5% feared in the first days in China and Italy) and whether we should be fearful of dying takes a back seat and the question about our future health comes to the fore. I would really like to see more figures (by age group) about how many survivers come out well, and how many do not.

For me, it has been helpful to understand that Covid-19 is a quite pervasive infection, much more than something that just affects your respiratory system and is unlikely to actually kill you there.

 

[antipodean]

Excellent points @Alby . I am interested to understand more about who Covid affects and what correlations there are as it may also help to explain why Covid does not appear to be taking a heavier toll on most African and Asian countries, where poverty is most prevalent but also where things like obesity, diabetes and heart disease are less prevalent. One would typically expect to see the "carnage" of an infectious illness most apparent in the poorest places. While such governments probably have significant limitations on keeping statistics, people always notice unusual and widespread death and sickness as it generally causes panic. Could it be to do with diets, lifestyles, the places people generally spend time or even younger populations ... or that those who it most affects are more likely to already be sick with something else, thus slipping under the radar and being blamed on Malaria, TB or HIV etc?

 

[Alby]

In the beginning, I was very alarmed because on Friday night's PBS News Hour they would run obituaries of common (US) citizens who had been active in their communities and had died of the virus. And almost all were aged across a spectrum between 20 and 70, giving the impression that the illness really does kill across all age groups indiscriminately. I have tried to rationalise that with more recent information that show deaths to be largely confined to very old people; for example, the daily updates from Melbourne over the last three weeks have detailed each previous day's deaths: almost all aged in their late 70s, 80s, 90s, and 100s. It is so pronounced, that I wonder why the government even does it; it is counterproductive if they are trying to convince a predominantly younger population to do the right thing.

Thinking back on the PBS obituaries, the photographs they presented were naturally those provided by the family showing the deceased in their best light. Given the high levels of severe obesity in the US, I do wonder if, had the viewers received a more realistic image of the preexisting health status of the unfortunate individuals, this might have given a clue as to why the individual might have succumbed so young to the disease.

I suspect that mortality, to the extent that it exists in younger age cohorts in wealthier countries, is a consequence of obesity and related pre-existing conditions. So, I am less worried about dying from Covid now than I was in the beginning watching the News Hour.

But I am still quite worried about become a "long hauler." And I want to know: how many survivors have serious long-term side effects and whether that is random, or is also related to obesity and preexisting conditions.

 

[gracielle]

Dr. Conrado Estol was interviewed this afternoon on TN and A24. Said "the peak will be reached in September and some form of a quarantine, depending on the region of ARG, could be continued thru Jan, 2021. Dr. Estol is a neurologist trained in the US. He is not a member of the President's expert group. I have been following his commentaries re: Covid-19 since March and his opinions have been spot on.

 

[artisans]

This is pulled from Wikipedia's page on the pandemic in Argentina. It breaks out the number of cases of Covid-19 by age, also by sex, current through 4 August. I remember, when the number of cases per day in Argentina was much lower than now, that this graph showed the relative # of cases in older patients was much higher. No longer the case. The bulk of infections now are from the years of 20 to 59.

 

[Alby]

A very high level of lethality.

 

[semigoodlookin]

Unfortunately, the above graph does not show how old the people who are dying are. Higher cases in younger people could be down to younger people having a more relaxed attitude to the situation, just look at the parks and streets. It would be interesting to know how many of those younger infections (say aged 49 and under) are dying compared to a percentage from older people, who are getting infected less but a greater percentage is likely dying. For me, the level of lethality shown in the graph remains relatively pointless without knowing who exactly is dying. Of course, working on the presumption the data on total infections is correct.

 

[Alby]

Agreed. The lethality figure is not much help useless since it is averaged across all age groups whereas each individual only has one age and would benefit from knowing how people in his or her cohort typically fare.

What surprises me is how high the averaged rate is. That is getting up towards the alarming rate feared at the start of the pandemic when little was known. However, I suppose, there is every reason to doubt the total number of cases for Argentina (it is probably much much higher than 213,000) and so the death rate (which will be much more reliable), would, in reality be a lot lower than 1.9%.