Corona Virus May Hit Argentina Hard

[jeff1234]

I don't think you are factoring in the deaths resulting from lack of capacity in the health systems. Something which your numbers take no account of.

This overwhelming of the health system will also cascade over and cause many collateral deaths of people who have other illnesses and get 'pushed out' by the covid cases. What will happen to those seasonal flu numbers when all the respirators are used for covid already, for example. No one is even modelling this dangeour yet, I suspect it would be grim maths indeed.

In all sincerity, I ask that you read the 20 page imperial college paper, published a few days ago. It's numbers and analysis is somewhat rosy in my view, but in any case still points in a clear direction . I'd be very interested if you still think the same way after reading it in full.

Best Wishes,

Cheers!

Attached

Thanks for the paper. I read it. It's like several I've seen, very persuasive regarding the health care issues. But on page 4 they say 'We do not consider the ethical or economic implications of either strategy here...' I feel that no action should be taken without considering all the people who will lose their homes and jobs and businesses. We could have had 1 day of debate before blundering ahead.

 

[Weyland]

Jeff - Look at the efforts of Singapore, Japan and Korea. They have done what you have described, but it has required massive testing and preventions before people enter public spaces. Unfortunately, most governments (the US and Western Europe included) don't have the organization or supplies to pull this off, as of yet at least.

The above isn't possible in Argentina or the US, so the only other option is to lock people down to try and slow the growth. If we just wash our hands more often, etc 70% of people will still get it and at least 1% will die in the next year. In the US that is 3 million people vs 40,000 driving accidents.

 

[NeoWonk]

As the OP, I was the one that warned about the danger of unrestricted travel back in January and was quickly branded a "racist". Well as we slowly die under our ventilators (if there are any left) we can say "well at least we weren't racists". That should supply some comfort.

If travel had been restricted way back then, then there might have been hope. It's now too late. Society can't shut down - there will be riots and looting.

The two week quarantine is a good idea to give time for hospitals to ramp up, to build field hospitals, etc. But we can't all stay at home watching TV - life has to go on. Yes a lot of old people are going to die because we needed to pat ourselves on the back for not being racist but now we're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

I'm at an at risk age but having gangs of marauders rampaging through the streets is a worse outcome than waiting for a ventilator.

The idiots at the WHO were worried about the proper terminology to use to not offend people and that the travel restrictions were overblown. Now they say the quarantines are not strict enough. F'ing idiots.

The idiots over at Wikipedia are trying to change the name of the Spanish Flu to the Epidemic of 1918 or some other nonsense so they can keep some idiot narrative going. Even though practically every epidemic has been named from the place it originated.

Absolute total state of IDIOCRACY.

 

[semigoodlookin]

Right we don't 'accept them' we work on preventions. We don't stop the world.
Right without isolation hundreds of thousands might die (probably less if we protected the sick and elderly).
Now where is the analysis of the cost of stopping everything for the CoronaVirus? For Aids? For Automobile deaths? For Obesity deaths?

By the way, we do practise forms of isolation for all those things. AIDS is the only real comparable because it is a virus too. However, we try to create a framework around road safety that involves creating laws to prevent dangerous driving and then punshing people who break those laws. These are vague forms of isolation (i.e. seperating dangerous drivers from the road-legal populous). Overcoming obesity is all about isolation, albeit not social. If you are obese, you overcome it by isolating yourself from food, or certain food groups. However, I repeat, these are not comparable and shouldn't even be in the dicussion. AIDS is comparable as a virus and the clear obvious way to avoid getting AIDS is to isolate yourself from it. Sure, the vector for receiving the virus is different and relies on honesty from an infected party, but still isolation solves AIDS.

It seems some people are only looking at the word isolate under one meaning. It does not only mean to be stuck in your house and not allowed out.

I get the question about the economy and have already said a mass isolation (quarantine) cannot go on into many weeks and months. It's just impossible and at some point decisions may have to be made, one of them just accepting our lot and getting on with it. I don't agree with that approach but we cannot ignore it could eventually become a possibility.

 

[semigoodlookin]

As the OP, I was the one that warned about the danger of unrestricted travel back in January and was quickly branded a "racist". Well as we slowly die under our ventilators (if there are any left) we can say "well at least we weren't racists". That should supply some comfort.

If travel had been restricted way back then, then there might have been hope. It's now too late. Society can't shut down - there will be riots and looting.

The two week quarantine is a good idea to give time for hospitals to ramp up, to build field hospitals, etc. But we can't all stay at home watching TV - life has to go on. Yes a lot of old people are going to die because we needed to pat ourselves on the back for not being racist but now we're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

I agree, China should have been isolated throughout Februaury and while I think we could manage to stretch the quarantine to a month, anything beyond that is just not possible. Still, I disagree with people who think isolation is not one of the best ways to prevent a virus spreading.

 

[toongeorges]

Italy has about 5,000 deaths so far, equivalent to 30,000 US deaths. 13,000 have died worldwide. Of course more to come.

For comparision: According to the WHO, 32 million people have died of HIV since the beginning of the epidemic. Moreover, of the 37.9 million people living with HIV today, just over 770,000 died in 2018.

My question is: Why stop the world over 13,000 deaths (so far) when we accept other much larger death tolls? And why no discussion of the costs of stopping everything? To start with the American politicians just got their hands on $2Trillion, how much will go to their friends like it did in 2008?

These 5000 deaths were with less than 1 in 1000 Italians infected. Imagine the impact if all get infected.

 

[NeoWonk]

I agree, China should have been isolated throughout Februaury and while I think we could manage to stretch the quarantine to a month, anything beyond that is just not possible. Still, I disagree with people who think isolation is not one of the best ways to prevent a virus spreading.

Absolutely agree, a strictly enforced quarantine will give authorities time to ramp up. Time to call up the military. Time to get people up to snuff on their basic training. Hire more police, Food stamp infrastructure, Soup kitchens, Build field hospitals, etc.

We can only pray that the government is doing this.

But regardless, essential services need to go back online. Closing the banks would be an absolute recipe for violence.

Some of us old folks are going to have to die because of the idiotic response of not having strict travel restrictions.

I hope I'm not one of them.

 

[London2Baires]

The idiots at the WHO were worried about the proper terminology to use to not offend people and that the travel restrictions were overblown. Now they say the quarantines are not strict enough. F'ing idiots.
.

Absolute total state of IDIOCRACY.

Hey,

So I went back through some WHO statements to see when their advice on travel started changing, and why.

It seems that they were slow for sure, but then if you dig a bit deeper its clear that a significant proportion of member states (countires who are signatories to the international health regulations) were reneging on their responsibilities to provide the WHO with detailed data on epidimediology clinical severity, investigations, and the results of community studies.

The WHO has internal protocols for issuing advice, and if the countries who they protect refuse to give them the data they legally should give, then this is what you get. In retrospect if they'd had more data earlier, I suspect they would have acted accordingly.

The WHO talks about some of these issues here in this video from Feb 4th.

Cheers!

 

[TomAtAlki]

For what it’s worth https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu
Origins of Spanish Flu.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Can anyone tell me why we accept 38,000 American deaths annually from driving accidents, 47,000 from suicide, 20,000 from other flu's and 100,000 to 400,000 deaths from obesity yet we're wrecking our world to prevent a few thousand American deaths that the CoronaVirus will cause before a vaccine is likely available?

Because 1/3 of the world population was infected from Spanish flu. It means that the risk is 110 millions of Americans.