Author Topic: Coronavirus preparedness  (Read 129201 times)

hops

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #850 on: April 21, 2020, 12:33:15 PM »
The case for having a household pulse oximeter as part of C19 preparedness, by a leading airway expert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

We got ours in late February for around $20. Not sure if price gouging is currently a problem.

Metalcat

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #851 on: April 21, 2020, 12:55:03 PM »
The case for having a household pulse oximeter as part of C19 preparedness, by a leading airway expert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

We got ours in late February for around $20. Not sure if price gouging is currently a problem.

Incidentally, I have a few of these at home.

hops

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #852 on: April 21, 2020, 01:00:51 PM »
The case for having a household pulse oximeter as part of C19 preparedness, by a leading airway expert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

We got ours in late February for around $20. Not sure if price gouging is currently a problem.

Incidentally, I have a few of these at home.

We should've gotten extras back then to distribute to our most stubborn (and least likely to seek help) relatives. I know what my MIL will be getting for Mother's Day.

Imma

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #853 on: April 21, 2020, 01:29:03 PM »
I've got one too, I think that's probably even more important than a thermometer. Most of the time people feel they've got a fever but I've witnessed firsthand how Covid-19 pneumonia can remain symptomless for a while. Also, in case of emergency, low saturation will get you an ambulance quickly, unlike general fatigue or shortness of breath.

LightTripper

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #854 on: April 23, 2020, 08:16:51 AM »
I didn't think of it until March, by which point getting one quickly in the UK came at a cost of a few hundred quid!  I instead went for a £25 job but at the cost of it coming by slow boat from China... Had lots of positive reviews from Italy (I'm hoping these things are simple enough that quality isn't too much of an issue... If it is, then lots of people running round with inaccurate versions could cause a bit of a nightmare in itself).  Due to arrive in a couple of weeks if all goes well.  Seems like a useful thing to have at home.

slappy

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #855 on: April 23, 2020, 09:03:56 AM »
The case for having a household pulse oximeter as part of C19 preparedness, by a leading airway expert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

We got ours in late February for around $20. Not sure if price gouging is currently a problem.

I bought one pretty recently for $25 ish. Also sent one to my mom. When my kids were babies, I had the monitor that attaches to the foot and tells you how their breathing is. (the Owlette monitor) As my youngest grew out of it, I often wished I had something similar when they were sick, especially two of my kids have been hospitalized with RSV every year. (except this year, thank goodness!) I will probably get use of it regardless of what happens with C19 and I'm very happy to have it.

Abe

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #856 on: April 23, 2020, 07:43:31 PM »
I didn't think of it until March, by which point getting one quickly in the UK came at a cost of a few hundred quid!  I instead went for a £25 job but at the cost of it coming by slow boat from China... Had lots of positive reviews from Italy (I'm hoping these things are simple enough that quality isn't too much of an issue... If it is, then lots of people running round with inaccurate versions could cause a bit of a nightmare in itself).  Due to arrive in a couple of weeks if all goes well.  Seems like a useful thing to have at home.

Unfortunately quality does matter. Definitely get one that shows the waveform in some fashion (either an animated bar graph or an animated line graph). Pulse ox machines are somewhat finicky and often give falsely low reading when you first put them on. Once the waveform stabilizes to your pulse, then you can be more confident in the reading. If you have one without a waveform, it should at least tell you your pulse rate, which you can independently verify with a clock. Most will not work if you are wearing nail polish.

frugaldrummer

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #857 on: April 23, 2020, 08:04:46 PM »
Pulse oximeters are very handy (we have monitored by boyfriend’s oxygen levels throughout his
lung cancer treatment with one). Important thing to know - if your fingers are cold it will read low. So warm those fingers up first to normal temp before testing.

Vitamin D may play a role in whether someone has a severe case or a mild case according to a prepublication report, so take your vitamin D and get some sunshine if you can.

No, you cannot disinfect a person internally with UV light or bleach so please listen to the doctors and scientists and not the uninformed ramblings of a poorly educated old man.

The New York surveillance study results reported today almost perfectly support my initial estimates of overall fatality per infection. Not bad for a back of the envelope guesstimate . It remains to be seen if the West Coast actually has a less aggressive strain.

LightTripper

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #858 on: April 24, 2020, 03:20:46 AM »
Unfortunately quality does matter. Definitely get one that shows the waveform in some fashion (either an animated bar graph or an animated line graph). Pulse ox machines are somewhat finicky and often give falsely low reading when you first put them on. Once the waveform stabilizes to your pulse, then you can be more confident in the reading. If you have one without a waveform, it should at least tell you your pulse rate, which you can independently verify with a clock. Most will not work if you are wearing nail polish.

Thanks, that's useful info!  It may turn out not to be as much help as I'd hoped - but a small expense and if we're healthy when it arrives we'll get a chance to at least check it's not giving us false alarms when we're well I guess - though sounds it may be hard to have much confidence in the results if we get ill without having the chance to calibrate it!

DaMa

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #859 on: July 09, 2020, 09:03:25 AM »
I want to say thank you to @frugaldrummer .  Today I read that the latest models are predicting 200,000 deaths by November, which was the lower bound he shared and many here scoffed at.

On March 2nd, I started really researching what was happening, because I had a cruise scheduled on 3/23.  Frugaldrummer seemed to me the person with the best information.  I read the reports he linked as well as many others. I shared what I learned with my friends and family, and none have gotten sick, including 3 of my 4 children who are essential workers in Metro Detroit.

Thank you very much.

CrustyBadger

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #860 on: July 09, 2020, 01:39:33 PM »
Yes, thank you @frugaldrummer

You were told you might have an anxiety disorder back in February but now I think the whole county has an anxiety disorder due to COVID uncertainties...

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #861 on: July 09, 2020, 02:55:56 PM »
@frugaldrummer, you may have saved lives through your hard work on this forum.  I agreed with you but didn't have the science training so stayed quiet. 

Thanks very much for your contributions to the community.

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #862 on: July 09, 2020, 04:11:54 PM »
I had already seen what had happened in China and how quickly things deteriorated so I believed frugaldrummer. BTW, they are posting in the “August is when it all implodes” thread, and apparently there are studies showing Vitamin D may help prevent COVID. I’m glad we stocked up on our annual order of Vitamin D pills when we were in Canada in March.

frugaldrummer

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #863 on: January 01, 2021, 08:20:16 AM »
Quote
Yes, the flu kills tens of thousands every year (get your flu shots!). This coronavirus will likely be on the order of 200,000 to 1 million deaths in the US. Many public health pronouncements are made to try to prevent panic. However, if major quarantines are put in place in the US it will induce panic, and quite a bit of disruption.

Just want to point out I posted this on Feb 24th and took endless shit for being a fearmonger. Current deaths over 344,000 and counting.

Denial is a powerful thing and this year has shown us that in spades.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 09:06:56 AM by frugaldrummer »

Shane

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #864 on: January 01, 2021, 08:42:35 AM »
^^Just seeing this now. It's pretty amazing how prescient your predictions were, way back in February, frugaldrummer!

frugaldrummer

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #865 on: January 01, 2021, 09:08:47 AM »
Yeah, not bad for back of the envelope calculations. A background in molecular biology and a lifetime in medicine helped.

CrustyBadger

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #866 on: January 01, 2021, 09:30:55 AM »
Wow, frugaldrummer, you got into a discussion/argument early on in the thread with someone about whether 100MM people in the US being infected was remotely possible.

I just looked up the most recent CDC estimates of COVID infection (not just how many have tested positive since many people did not/do not get tested)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html


Quote
These estimates suggest that during that period, there were approximately:

91 Million
Estimated Total Infections


77 Million
Estimated Symptomatic Illnesses

3.4 Million
Estimated Hospitalizations

Important to keep in mind that the 91 Million infections was WITH massive mitigation measures at least in some places and at some times -- mask mandates, indoor dining closed, schools closed or hybrid, social distancing, lots of telework etc.   If those things hadn't happened we'd have had at least double+ the infections.

Freedomin5

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #867 on: January 02, 2021, 05:23:23 AM »
Yeah, those initial posts bashing frugaldrummer did NOT age well. It’s almost comical to read in hindsight. The US is currently sitting at 341,000 COVID-related deaths. I’d say pretty much all the predictions came true.

StarBright

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #868 on: January 02, 2021, 07:49:05 AM »
This thread has really stuck with me this year and I think about it probably more than any other thread I've participated in. It was the thread that inspired me to sew my own masks back in March, but also made me wonder if I was insane for doing so :) .

Adventine

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #869 on: January 02, 2021, 09:13:07 AM »
Yeah, not bad for back of the envelope calculations. A background in molecular biology and a lifetime in medicine helped.

Thank you for having raised awareness on the forum in February 2020, a time when many, including myself, did not think the situation would become so bad.

OtherJen

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #870 on: January 02, 2021, 09:20:26 AM »
Yeah, those initial posts bashing frugaldrummer did NOT age well. It’s almost comical to read in hindsight. The US is currently sitting at 341,000 COVID-related deaths. I’d say pretty much all the predictions came true.

Yes. It doesn’t seem unrealistic at all that the US could hit 500k COVID deaths by the end of February. Frugaldrummer’s estimate was 200k to 1 million.

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #871 on: January 02, 2021, 10:29:44 AM »
Yeah, not bad for back of the envelope calculations. A background in molecular biology and a lifetime in medicine helped.

Thank you for having raised awareness on the forum in February 2020, a time when many, including myself, did not think the situation would become so bad.

Agreed.

Abe

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #872 on: January 02, 2021, 12:12:17 PM »
Yeah, not bad for back of the envelope calculations. A background in molecular biology and a lifetime in medicine helped.

Thanks again for raising the alarm and sorry you faced a lot of abuse and unfounded accusations about your mental health. It was not a proud time for the forum in general. Best of luck to you in the New Year!

fuzzy math

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #873 on: January 02, 2021, 01:26:54 PM »
I so don't want to be in this thread, but I can't help myself when people are talking past each other...

OP (Frugaldrummer) was talking about making fabric masks and believed that they could still be beneficial for personal use since OP believes the professional masks should be saved for healthcare workers.

Several people have mistakenly taken the OP's comments about washing those DIY masks in hot water the wrong way and thought OP meant they would be washing N95 masks.

No one is advocating washing professional or purchased masks.

I am doing nothing to prepare for the coronavirus. But I am due with a baby in just over 6 weeks, so I'll be stocking my freezer and pantry and home supplies over the next month to prepare for that.

We've discussed at length why one should not wear home-made fabric masks, and taken a dive into the scientific literature on the efficacy.
Homemade fabric masks cannot filter out virus particles, they create a warm, wet-enviornment to harbor microbes, and they aren't designed to be taken on/off without transferring anything on the mask to your nose and mouth.

They have limited use if you are already sick as they will limit airborne particles.  But they are worse than useless when worn by healthy individuals.  If you are then taking those homemade masks and wachine washing them you are making them even worse every washing.

This, in particular, aged well...
« Last Edit: January 02, 2021, 01:29:23 PM by fuzzy math »

Zamboni

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #874 on: January 02, 2021, 11:04:31 PM »
@frugaldrummer, I'm sorry you were right, but I'm really, really thankful that you warned us (as I wrote on this thread in late March.) You saved my family and me some real pain by giving us a heads up in time to get ready.

I even found myself parroting your advice to a student who was asking me what I thought the pros and cons were of scheduling his elective knee surgery for before or after spring break (told him if he didn't get the surgery scheduled for early March or sooner, then it might be cancelled indefinitely.) Like you, people often ask my advice, then ignore it, and rarely do they follow up to tell me how things turned out, so I don't even know if he got his knee fixed yet or not!

SotI

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #875 on: January 03, 2021, 04:04:53 AM »
I didn't participate in this thread but I read it at the time and was more inclined towards Frugaldrummer's view, mostly b/c I didn't believe that China was drastically shutting down areas without cause. I also have some negative experience with feline Corona viruses and infection/mutation risks. So, I chose to play it safe from early Feb onwards (still do), and Frugaldrummer's reasoning made me actually feel less irrational.

So, thanks from me, too. 😊

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #876 on: January 03, 2021, 09:15:00 AM »
This thread startled me into action in February, so I'm very thankful for that. We had toilet paper, masks, cleaning supplies and a full pantry well before the shelves were emptied. I did feel a little silly at the time, but as the predictions in the thread came true I was so glad to be prepared.

mistymoney

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #877 on: January 03, 2021, 02:51:31 PM »
Quote
Yes, the flu kills tens of thousands every year (get your flu shots!). This coronavirus will likely be on the order of 200,000 to 1 million deaths in the US. Many public health pronouncements are made to try to prevent panic. However, if major quarantines are put in place in the US it will induce panic, and quite a bit of disruption.

Just want to point out I posted this on Feb 24th and took endless shit for being a fearmonger. Current deaths over 344,000 and counting.

Denial is a powerful thing and this year has shown us that in spades.

So glad you are doing well as I know you work in health care.

Many of us benefitted from your wise words, and I for one am exceedingly thankful you started this thread.

mistymoney

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #878 on: January 03, 2021, 03:01:39 PM »
Yeah, those initial posts bashing frugaldrummer did NOT age well. It’s almost comical to read in hindsight. The US is currently sitting at 341,000 COVID-related deaths. I’d say pretty much all the predictions came true.

I didn't think they sat that well at the time. Of course we all hoped that those predictions wouldn't come to pass, but the way that discussion unfolded was not ok in my opinion.

It's one thing to say "I disagree and here my rationale for that/alternate info/my and or others predictions"

Frugaldrummer was chastised and criticized, interfering with some of us actually trying to talk about how to prepare just in case.   

Peony

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #879 on: January 03, 2021, 04:31:02 PM »
Thanks from me, too, @frugaldrummer . This thread was a wake-up call for me and, indirectly, my family. So far only the youngest, healthiest family member (college student living with 2 housemates) has gotten Covid and his case was extremely mild. We are all trying to remain vigilant and cautious until we can be vaccinated.

HMman

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #880 on: May 25, 2021, 11:13:15 AM »
This thread was linked in another post, which I've since lost, so I'm going to reply in here. Just wanted to pile on with the admiration for raising the alarm bells so early on, @frugaldrummer. I didn't see this thread when it was first started, and have only had the chance to read through it now, and your predictions and recommendations are eerily accurate in hindsight. The accusations you got regarding your mental health and perceived anxiety, especially by a few forum luminaries, was... well, it was something. Hindsight is obviously 20/20, and I don't know how I would have read those posts at the time either, but those are some deeply uncomfortable posts to read now. Hope you've been doing well.

Also, kudos to @GuitarStv for posting the only unqualified mea culpa that I saw in this thread for his earlier comments downplaying the risks of the outbreak.

Taran Wanderer

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #881 on: May 27, 2021, 07:23:49 PM »
I have to say thank you, also. I could do the math about the pandemic early on, but this thread helped me realize I wasn’t crazy for thinking the worst. We took things seriously, and we avoided getting sick for a long time. Despite precautions, we got sick, felt terrible, and. Have mostly recovered. (Some things are just not the same even five months later.)  Odds may be good for you, but if you draw a bad card, it doesn’t matter what your odds were prior to the draw. We drew a bad card, but our precautions kept us from infecting anyone else.

Thank you, @frugaldrummer , for your early caution.

wellactually

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #882 on: May 28, 2021, 12:50:10 PM »
I so don't want to be in this thread, but I can't help myself when people are talking past each other...

OP (Frugaldrummer) was talking about making fabric masks and believed that they could still be beneficial for personal use since OP believes the professional masks should be saved for healthcare workers.

Several people have mistakenly taken the OP's comments about washing those DIY masks in hot water the wrong way and thought OP meant they would be washing N95 masks.

No one is advocating washing professional or purchased masks.

I am doing nothing to prepare for the coronavirus. But I am due with a baby in just over 6 weeks, so I'll be stocking my freezer and pantry and home supplies over the next month to prepare for that.

We've discussed at length why one should not wear home-made fabric masks, and taken a dive into the scientific literature on the efficacy.
Homemade fabric masks cannot filter out virus particles, they create a warm, wet-enviornment to harbor microbes, and they aren't designed to be taken on/off without transferring anything on the mask to your nose and mouth.

They have limited use if you are already sick as they will limit airborne particles.  But they are worse than useless when worn by healthy individuals.  If you are then taking those homemade masks and wachine washing them you are making them even worse every washing.

This, in particular, aged well...

Person who was due with a baby on April 13, 2020 chiming back in! I was spurred into earlier action by @frugaldrummer's posts here. I made a couple really big grocery runs right after I posted the above just in case and had my freezer and pantry stocked up and toilet paper in the closet before my baby was born on April 18. I remember being at the store and things seeming normal still and I thought about this post and just threw in a few more cans of veggies and bags of rice.

Giving birth during the nationwide stay at home is not something I recommend!

Also, I did sew myself a mask in early March lol.

mistymoney

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #883 on: May 28, 2021, 02:15:36 PM »
Well we don’t have the best grasp on the true fatality rate - a recent statistical estimate was 0.3-0.6 case fatality rate. If 20% of the US population were to be infected (Spanish Flu was 30%) the that would mean 200k to 400k deaths.

However a recent study on the first 200 patients admitted to one hospital in China (all admitted before Jan 12 so presumably before people were being turned away) showed 55 of 201 sent to the ICU, 3 of those died in transit or on arrival, another 32 died in the ICU for a fatality rate of 17.4%. Now obviously, these were cases serious enough to warrant admission. However, if this represented only 10% of those infected and the rest were mild or asymptomatic, the fatality rate would be 1.74%. Italy has 5 deaths already.

So the upper end of my estimate - 1 million US deaths - would hold true if 20% get infected and the fatality rate is actually 1.5%, or if 30% of the population gets infected and the fatality rate is 1 %. Hopefully it will be half that but it’s not an unreasonable upper estimate given the little information we have.
Please stop making such wild predictions. It contributes to uninformed hysteria and misinformation.    This is not the influenza pandemic of 1917-1919, and our global health care system is not what it was 100 years ago.

No credible epidemiologist is suggesting that the US will have ~100MM cases from this virus.  Now that we know what this virus is and can monitor and test for it, its pretty clear that the lethality is on the lower end of the spectrum.  As with all outbreaks, as we learn about its effects the mortality rates tail off; that's what we are seeing here.

Transmission is also not a random act of fate.  There is a great deal that individuals can (and should!) do to minimize their risk, and those with very good health habits can push their transmission risk down to negligible numbers in all but the most infected and population-dense locations.

You can find a wealth of up-to-date information here:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html

It really was just like the 1917 flu pandemic.

I don't know where we'd be right now if the vaccines hadn't come through so quickly. And still hundreds of americans dying every day. And millions refusing the vaccine. We might hit a million deaths yet.  :(

Sadly - over 400 people who were fully vaccinated have died of covid anyway.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

This isn't as over as we'd like to believe.

OtherJen

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #884 on: May 29, 2021, 05:23:03 AM »
Well we don’t have the best grasp on the true fatality rate - a recent statistical estimate was 0.3-0.6 case fatality rate. If 20% of the US population were to be infected (Spanish Flu was 30%) the that would mean 200k to 400k deaths.

However a recent study on the first 200 patients admitted to one hospital in China (all admitted before Jan 12 so presumably before people were being turned away) showed 55 of 201 sent to the ICU, 3 of those died in transit or on arrival, another 32 died in the ICU for a fatality rate of 17.4%. Now obviously, these were cases serious enough to warrant admission. However, if this represented only 10% of those infected and the rest were mild or asymptomatic, the fatality rate would be 1.74%. Italy has 5 deaths already.

So the upper end of my estimate - 1 million US deaths - would hold true if 20% get infected and the fatality rate is actually 1.5%, or if 30% of the population gets infected and the fatality rate is 1 %. Hopefully it will be half that but it’s not an unreasonable upper estimate given the little information we have.
Please stop making such wild predictions. It contributes to uninformed hysteria and misinformation.    This is not the influenza pandemic of 1917-1919, and our global health care system is not what it was 100 years ago.

No credible epidemiologist is suggesting that the US will have ~100MM cases from this virus.  Now that we know what this virus is and can monitor and test for it, its pretty clear that the lethality is on the lower end of the spectrum.  As with all outbreaks, as we learn about its effects the mortality rates tail off; that's what we are seeing here.

Transmission is also not a random act of fate.  There is a great deal that individuals can (and should!) do to minimize their risk, and those with very good health habits can push their transmission risk down to negligible numbers in all but the most infected and population-dense locations.

You can find a wealth of up-to-date information here:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html

It really was just like the 1917 flu pandemic.

I don't know where we'd be right now if the vaccines hadn't come through so quickly. And still hundreds of americans dying every day. And millions refusing the vaccine. We might hit a million deaths yet.  :(

Sadly - over 400 people who were fully vaccinated have died of covid anyway.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

This isn't as over as we'd like to believe.

Yes. We're at 608K deaths as of this morning, and 34 million confirmed cases (although the actual number is likely much higher). Countries that effectively squelched the first waves, like Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam, are having a lot more trouble with highly contagious variants this spring: Vietnam detects highly contagious new coronavirus variant as infections surge (Wash. Post)

The 1918 flu pandemic stretched on for a bit over 2 years, with 3 big US waves in the first year. Very little suggests that the COVID pandemic isn't following the same trajectory.

Shane

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #885 on: May 29, 2021, 08:41:44 PM »
Measuring Mortality In The Pandemics Of 1918–19 And 2020–21

"Any mortality comparisons between these two pandemics in the United States, 2020 and 1918, must differentiate between totals and rates. The current US population, a little more than 330 million, is more than three times larger than the population in 1918, estimated at 105 million. The 675,000 deaths attributed to the influenza epidemic made up 0.64 percent of the total population, a little more than six in every thousand people. By contrast, the more than 500,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 make up about 0.15 percent of the total population, or between one and two in every thousand people. If COVID-19 caused deaths at the same rate as the 1918 epidemic, the total would approach two million. Even the disturbing projections of more than to 600,000 deaths by July 1, 2021, would still remain below the rates recorded in the earlier epidemic."

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #886 on: May 30, 2021, 05:16:49 AM »
I think it’s worth factoring in the improvements in medical care since 1918, though.

Mr. Green

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #887 on: May 30, 2021, 03:58:17 PM »
I think it’s worth factoring in the improvements in medical care since 1918, though.
Probably safe to say every person who went to the ICU for COVID would have died 100 years ago.

Imma

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #888 on: May 31, 2021, 01:15:37 PM »
I think it’s worth factoring in the improvements in medical care since 1918, though.
Probably safe to say every person who went to the ICU for COVID would have died 100 years ago.

Probably everyone who got oxygen would have died in 1918. The use of oxygen for pneumonia was first discovered in 1890 and in WWI oxygen was used on soldiers exposed to poison gas but oxygen therapy as we know it wasn't the norm before the 1960s.

dougules

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #889 on: June 03, 2021, 10:28:40 AM »
How drastic were the mitigations like lockdowns and mask mandates in the 1918 pandemic?  People present numbers of deaths as how bad COVID is, but that number was very heavily mitigated by really drastic changes in how society functions. 

Mr. Green

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #890 on: June 03, 2021, 11:34:47 AM »
How drastic were the mitigations like lockdowns and mask mandates in the 1918 pandemic?  People present numbers of deaths as how bad COVID is, but that number was very heavily mitigated by really drastic changes in how society functions.
I don't know about lockdowns but I've seen photographs from that time period that indicated those refusing to wear masks would be jailed. They may have had more balls back then than we do now.

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #891 on: June 03, 2021, 12:41:59 PM »
How drastic were the mitigations like lockdowns and mask mandates in the 1918 pandemic?  People present numbers of deaths as how bad COVID is, but that number was very heavily mitigated by really drastic changes in how society functions.
I don't know about lockdowns but I've seen photographs from that time period that indicated those refusing to wear masks would be jailed. They may have had more balls back then than we do now.

A great number of people were jailed during the 1918 pandemic for failing to follow mask guidelines.
https://crosscut.com/2020/07/mask-wars-1918-flu-pandemic
https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-resistance

frugaldrummer

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #892 on: July 11, 2021, 04:37:22 PM »
Hi all - OP here, haven’t been around in some time, hope you all are well. I am well and fully vaccinated, as are my family members. Even my boyfriend with stage 4 lung cancer is still here and managed to avoid Covid, despite monthly chemo visits to the clinic.
I thought I’d share my thoughts about where we are now in regards to Covid, and what I’m doing.

First of all, people are acting as if Covid is over, and it is not. Some initial assumptions about what it would take to reach herd immunity have been changed due to the Delta (and other) variants. 70% of people with immunity may not be high enough with the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant. Measles requires a 95% vaccination rate for herd immunity. The Delta variant will probably require at least over 80%.

Yes, if you are vaccinated, your personal risk of dying from Covid is quite low. Over 99% of Covid deaths right now are in the unvaccinated (vaccines work!!!).  But you have at least a 10% risk of developing an asymptomatic or mild case of Covid, which you could then transmit to other vulnerable people, like the un-vaccinated (including children) or immunocompromised. (Possibly a higher risk, based on recent data out of Israel). So to protect OTHERS and to speed reaching herd immunity, I still recommend mask wearing if you are indoors in public (like the grocery store, movie theaters etc. ) . Outdoors is probably safe to be unmasked if you’re not in a tight crowd.

Some states and counties with very low vaccination rates are already seeing an upswing in Covid hospitalizations. If you live in those areas I’d be extra careful and follow your local county statistics.

I know there has been some talk about a vaccination for children under 12 by fall; I’m guessing more like the beginning of 2022. No inside knowledge, just this is a slightly more complex trial than the approval for 12-17 year olds. Teens are basically adults when it comes to dosing most things. Approving the vaccine for children requires figuring out the proper dosing for different ages and/or weights, and so requires a more complicated trial I imagine.

A great source for analysis of Covid news from a scientific perspective is the blog Your Local Epidemiologist).

Many of my patients ask me about booster shots. This is really a two part question:
How long will the immunity from our vaccines last? We don’t know yet. They’re holding up well so far. Could be an annual shot, if could be more like tetanus with an every 5 year shot. Won’t know for a while.

When will we need a booster for variants? Fortunately, the three vaccines we have in the US still give us pretty good immunity against serious disease from the Delta variant. This may change in the future. Moderna already is 3 months into a clinical trial of a booster targeting the South African mutation which is part of the Delta variant. Or simply getting a third shot of the existing vaccine, as Pfizer is proposing, may boost immunity so much that new variants are not so much a threat.

I expect 3-4 years until the rest of the world has reach herd immunity and variants stop cropping up.

How all this will affect our finances is guesswork. What I am doing personally is still wearing a mask in public and at work, still requiring patients to wear masks in the office, socializing only with small groups of vaccinated and careful people. I will attend an outdoor seated concert in August and plan to wear a mask. I still don’t eat at restaurants, I get takeout. I’m more cautious than some because I have a vulnerable person at home and I don’t want to risk getting an asymptomatic case.

I have seen 10-20% of my unvaccinated patients who had mild to moderate outpatient Covid cases develop long term consequences. Even in young healthy people. And almost all the Covid deaths today would have been prevented with a vaccine. My sister lost a friend last month because he was unvaccinated.

« Last Edit: July 11, 2021, 07:27:58 PM by frugaldrummer »

Freedomin5

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #893 on: July 11, 2021, 06:16:55 PM »
Thanks for this @frugaldrummer !

I was at the mall yesterday, and most of the people were unmasked. We have an approximately 16% fully vaccinated rate, and our vaccines appear to be between 50-70% effective. Of course, we also have very tight border controls, strong contact tracing, and 2 weeks mandatory government quarantine as well as 1 week home monitoring for incoming folks, so we have very few locally transmitted cases. It's still a good reminder to stay vigilant though.

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #894 on: July 12, 2021, 08:41:55 PM »
Thanks from me too, @frugaldrummer.

Anecdotally, I know four people who are not vaccinated, and they are not wearing masks anymore at all.

wenchsenior

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #895 on: July 13, 2021, 09:03:11 AM »
Hi all - OP here, haven’t been around in some time, hope you all are well. I am well and fully vaccinated, as are my family members. Even my boyfriend with stage 4 lung cancer is still here and managed to avoid Covid, despite monthly chemo visits to the clinic.
I thought I’d share my thoughts about where we are now in regards to Covid, and what I’m doing.

First of all, people are acting as if Covid is over, and it is not. Some initial assumptions about what it would take to reach herd immunity have been changed due to the Delta (and other) variants. 70% of people with immunity may not be high enough with the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant. Measles requires a 95% vaccination rate for herd immunity. The Delta variant will probably require at least over 80%.

Yes, if you are vaccinated, your personal risk of dying from Covid is quite low. Over 99% of Covid deaths right now are in the unvaccinated (vaccines work!!!).  But you have at least a 10% risk of developing an asymptomatic or mild case of Covid, which you could then transmit to other vulnerable people, like the un-vaccinated (including children) or immunocompromised. (Possibly a higher risk, based on recent data out of Israel). So to protect OTHERS and to speed reaching herd immunity, I still recommend mask wearing if you are indoors in public (like the grocery store, movie theaters etc. ) . Outdoors is probably safe to be unmasked if you’re not in a tight crowd.

Some states and counties with very low vaccination rates are already seeing an upswing in Covid hospitalizations. If you live in those areas I’d be extra careful and follow your local county statistics.

I know there has been some talk about a vaccination for children under 12 by fall; I’m guessing more like the beginning of 2022. No inside knowledge, just this is a slightly more complex trial than the approval for 12-17 year olds. Teens are basically adults when it comes to dosing most things. Approving the vaccine for children requires figuring out the proper dosing for different ages and/or weights, and so requires a more complicated trial I imagine.

A great source for analysis of Covid news from a scientific perspective is the blog Your Local Epidemiologist).

Many of my patients ask me about booster shots. This is really a two part question:
How long will the immunity from our vaccines last? We don’t know yet. They’re holding up well so far. Could be an annual shot, if could be more like tetanus with an every 5 year shot. Won’t know for a while.

When will we need a booster for variants? Fortunately, the three vaccines we have in the US still give us pretty good immunity against serious disease from the Delta variant. This may change in the future. Moderna already is 3 months into a clinical trial of a booster targeting the South African mutation which is part of the Delta variant. Or simply getting a third shot of the existing vaccine, as Pfizer is proposing, may boost immunity so much that new variants are not so much a threat.

I expect 3-4 years until the rest of the world has reach herd immunity and variants stop cropping up.

How all this will affect our finances is guesswork. What I am doing personally is still wearing a mask in public and at work, still requiring patients to wear masks in the office, socializing only with small groups of vaccinated and careful people. I will attend an outdoor seated concert in August and plan to wear a mask. I still don’t eat at restaurants, I get takeout. I’m more cautious than some because I have a vulnerable person at home and I don’t want to risk getting an asymptomatic case.

I have seen 10-20% of my unvaccinated patients who had mild to moderate outpatient Covid cases develop long term consequences. Even in young healthy people. And almost all the Covid deaths today would have been prevented with a vaccine. My sister lost a friend last month because he was unvaccinated.

This is what we are doing as well.  I have a history of weird and disturbing autoimmune responses to standard mild cold viruses, so I really do not want to get this disease. And I have a high risk mother that I see regularly.  My husband's stepfather just died of Covid (vocal anti-masker).  We view this as a long way from being over.  My husband keeps talking about taking a vacation, but honestly I think by fall (when we are likely to be able to do it), there will be hotspots all over the place so I am unsure about making any hard plans, esp that involve air travel.  I'm not even super excited at the prospect of plane travel right now, when case rates are pretty low.  Apart from anything associated with said hypothetical vacation that might or might not happen, we have no plans to eat in restaurants or go to movies or or indoor concerts or anything that involves crowds indoors.  No big loss there, we don't really miss it that much. We will continue to swim for exercise at the outdoor pool or the very huge, high ceiling indoor pool (depending on local case rates and crowding) but not go to the gym/weight room.  Other exercise will be done outdoors, where we've never bothered to mask anyway this past year plus (we are in an area where there's plenty of room to social distance while out walking).

I'm uneasy about how fall will go, with my husband teaching a college class. I'm concerned about it b/c I am not confident he'll be able to enforce masking among his students (the campus lifted all mask restrictions, and it's TX, so the government is anti-mask), and there's a field trip component where people are all crammed into vans for hours on end.  That component was cancelled last year and it sucked b/c it is a big element of the class, and the fun element.

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #896 on: July 13, 2021, 09:43:28 AM »
@wenchsenior, I'm curious if your step FIL changed his anti-mask opinion at any time during his illness or expressed any regret.  I've heard several stories of people on their deathbed still refusing to believe they have Covid.  I guess the saying is true, that there is none so blind as he who will not see.  (Sorry for your loss, regardless.)

I'm not familiar with the current rates in Texas, but here in Canada, where rates are pretty low and vaccination rates pretty high, several provinces are dropping all restrictions, which I think is premature, given the uncertainty with the variants.  I suspect it will be a more relaxed summer, but then some restrictions will be re-implemented in fall once rates start to rise again.  It seems that we have enough anti-vaxxers and people that just couldn't be bothered to not achieve herd immunity, which is now set at 85-90% due to the variants.  My only hope is that once people see the risk that they are taking, as lately the only hospitalizations and death in my province have been with the unvaccinated, that will change.

wenchsenior

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #897 on: July 13, 2021, 11:05:07 AM »
@wenchsenior, I'm curious if your step FIL changed his anti-mask opinion at any time during his illness or expressed any regret.  I've heard several stories of people on their deathbed still refusing to believe they have Covid.  I guess the saying is true, that there is none so blind as he who will not see.  (Sorry for your loss, regardless.)

I'm not familiar with the current rates in Texas, but here in Canada, where rates are pretty low and vaccination rates pretty high, several provinces are dropping all restrictions, which I think is premature, given the uncertainty with the variants.  I suspect it will be a more relaxed summer, but then some restrictions will be re-implemented in fall once rates start to rise again.  It seems that we have enough anti-vaxxers and people that just couldn't be bothered to not achieve herd immunity, which is now set at 85-90% due to the variants.  My only hope is that once people see the risk that they are taking, as lately the only hospitalizations and death in my province have been with the unvaccinated, that will change.

FiL was in denial that he even had Covid until he was very close to death, from what I heard. Several other family members (at least some of whom were anti-vax, pro-Trump, Covid is a 'conspiracy') were also hospitalized from the same exposure event. At least one of those people (husband's mother) had previously told my husband she'd been vaccinated, but we're not convinced she wasn't lying to keep him from badgering her about it. She was certainly pro-Trump and also aligned with the kind of evangelicals who were buying into the 'Covid is a hoax' propaganda, so either she wasn't vaccinated (but told us she was), she had the vaccine too close to the exposure and got infected anyway, or she had a 'breakthrough' case so virulent that she ended up in a hospital for 10 days. I suspect Occam's razor...she lied to my husband about getting the vaccine.

I'm not sure if these family members have changed their opinion or not, having been hospitalized. It didn't change Trump's tune, after all. My husband didn't ask...he tries to keep politics completely out of his conversations with family b/c otherwise he wouldn't be able to tolerate said conversations.


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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #898 on: July 13, 2021, 12:16:01 PM »
@wenchsenior, I'm curious if your step FIL changed his anti-mask opinion at any time during his illness or expressed any regret.  I've heard several stories of people on their deathbed still refusing to believe they have Covid.  I guess the saying is true, that there is none so blind as he who will not see.  (Sorry for your loss, regardless.)

I'm not familiar with the current rates in Texas, but here in Canada, where rates are pretty low and vaccination rates pretty high, several provinces are dropping all restrictions, which I think is premature, given the uncertainty with the variants.  I suspect it will be a more relaxed summer, but then some restrictions will be re-implemented in fall once rates start to rise again.  It seems that we have enough anti-vaxxers and people that just couldn't be bothered to not achieve herd immunity, which is now set at 85-90% due to the variants.  My only hope is that once people see the risk that they are taking, as lately the only hospitalizations and death in my province have been with the unvaccinated, that will change.

Dropping all restrictions? I haven't heard that, but I'm in Ontario and we still can't even go into restaurants yet.

GuitarStv

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Re: Coronavirus preparedness
« Reply #899 on: July 13, 2021, 12:31:55 PM »
@wenchsenior, I'm curious if your step FIL changed his anti-mask opinion at any time during his illness or expressed any regret.  I've heard several stories of people on their deathbed still refusing to believe they have Covid.  I guess the saying is true, that there is none so blind as he who will not see.  (Sorry for your loss, regardless.)

I'm not familiar with the current rates in Texas, but here in Canada, where rates are pretty low and vaccination rates pretty high, several provinces are dropping all restrictions, which I think is premature, given the uncertainty with the variants.  I suspect it will be a more relaxed summer, but then some restrictions will be re-implemented in fall once rates start to rise again.  It seems that we have enough anti-vaxxers and people that just couldn't be bothered to not achieve herd immunity, which is now set at 85-90% due to the variants.  My only hope is that once people see the risk that they are taking, as lately the only hospitalizations and death in my province have been with the unvaccinated, that will change.

Dropping all restrictions? I haven't heard that, but I'm in Ontario and we still can't even go into restaurants yet.

Wait three days and we'll be pretty darned close.
- Indoor gatherings up to 25 people (exception for religious services and ceremonies like weddings/funerals which have no maximums)
- Outdoor social gatherings and events of up to 100 people
Larger religious services and other ceremonies like weddings and funerals can happen indoors with physical distancing measures in place.
- Indoor dining with no limits on the numbers of people
- Nightclubs opening to 25% capacity
- Indoor sporting events opening to 50% capacity (75% capacity if they're outdoors)
- Fully open retail
etc.