Author Topic: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?  (Read 675344 times)

Rosy

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3200 on: July 27, 2020, 11:00:25 AM »
SNIP
That being said, nursing home residents were already at high risk of death from COVID-19, and the 18% of total deaths from nursing homes is not out of line with other states' reports.

Absolutely THIS ^^^

DieSantis in Florida ---- a well deserved renaming for our governor DeSantis.

boy_bye

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3201 on: July 27, 2020, 01:09:56 PM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.

Yes out of town family who are very big Trump believers were justifying their non-mask wearing to us. The relatives had anecdotes about a testing technician who admitted he was not well trained and someone who possibly received a wrong number call from COVID results testing which they never had - that told them they were positive. Plus other anecdotes.

Anyhow these stories have greater validity to them than anything the big brain medical experts have recommended, more validity that 146,000+ dead, etc. etc. Of course anything that they don't like is fake news as their leader has demonstrated over and over.

DW and I talked at length on the way home about how different this pandemic would have been if we'd had a president who let the experts lead the pandemic and economic strategies rather than muddying up the conversations with his BS. Just leading by example wearing a mask and encouraging everyone to follow suit would have made a big difference.

Elections: they are all fun and games until we remember that the presidency is serious job that should probably be done by a serious person.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3202 on: July 27, 2020, 08:04:57 PM »
Internal advice is that Victoria's second wave has peaked and is on the downturn. Although it was only yesterday that we set a record for daily cases.

What can we learn from dealing with the pandemic? I would suggest that next time around, when the zombie apocalypse hits and we run out of shotgun shells, we focus on more targeted lockdowns. At the start, go harder on incoming travellers (sounds really obvious now but this was not done 5 months ago). Mandatory hotel quarantines with police guards, not untrained casual security staff.

Lock down high risk locations (tenements, prisons, aged care homes) hard and early. Prohibit visitors. Have a mechanism for casual staff working at multiple employers to get up to a few weeks of replacement pay so that they can be forced to give up their non-primary work. Shut down certain high risk industries as far as practicable. Ban extended family gatherings and indoor celebrations (or outdoor celebrations involving food sharing) for any reason.

I think this time around, we tried to apply a moderate lockdown to 80% of the population. In truth, a hard lockdown on 20% of the population would probably suffice. The infection mechanism follows the 80/20 rule.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3203 on: July 28, 2020, 01:01:21 AM »
Internal advice is that Victoria's second wave has peaked and is on the downturn. Although it was only yesterday that we set a record for daily cases.

I think this time around, we tried to apply a moderate lockdown to 80% of the population. In truth, a hard lockdown on 20% of the population would probably suffice. The infection mechanism follows the 80/20 rule.

I guess the issue is that many of the cases are appearing in workplaces which would be considered essential. Aged care being an obvious one. Food processing as well (although in desperate situations said food items can be shipped from interstate).

I'm just glad that masks haven't become a party political thing here (at least not with ALP or Coalition voters), and when I went for a walk on Saturday, there was ~99% compliance with the mask order.

former player

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3204 on: July 28, 2020, 02:42:43 AM »
What can we learn from dealing with the pandemic? I would suggest that next time around, when the zombie apocalypse hits and we run out of shotgun shells, we focus on more targeted lockdowns. At the start, go harder on incoming travellers (sounds really obvious now but this was not done 5 months ago). Mandatory hotel quarantines with police guards, not untrained casual security staff.

Lock down high risk locations (tenements, prisons, aged care homes) hard and early. Prohibit visitors. Have a mechanism for casual staff working at multiple employers to get up to a few weeks of replacement pay so that they can be forced to give up their non-primary work. Shut down certain high risk industries as far as practicable. Ban extended family gatherings and indoor celebrations (or outdoor celebrations involving food sharing) for any reason.

I think this time around, we tried to apply a moderate lockdown to 80% of the population. In truth, a hard lockdown on 20% of the population would probably suffice. The infection mechanism follows the 80/20 rule.
This will work excellently well provided the next pandemic is exactly the same as the current one.

Unfortunately it probably won't be.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3205 on: July 28, 2020, 02:47:16 AM »
It won't be, however it's possible there'll be other waves of this one. Let's say we wave a magic wand and it disappears in Australia tomorrow - so we open things up, and at some point a visiting soldier or diplomat from another country goes to the pub and it's all on again.

habanero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3206 on: July 28, 2020, 03:05:43 AM »
I've never really understood this talk about multiple waves of this virus. To me it's pretty obvious that everywhere is still in the first wave and only various measures has kept it in check or made it completely go away - it's not like the virus disappeared by its own due to lots of immunity (at least outside some of the hardest-hit regions), seasonal patterns, mutation or anything similar. If everyone now suddenly went back to living like in February the situation would be exactly the same everywhere as it was in March/April, only adjusted for whatever underlying immunity present in the population.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3207 on: July 28, 2020, 04:29:28 AM »
Wave, surge, whatever you like to call it. Cases go down, cases go up. For whatever reason. That's what we're talking about.

marty998

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3208 on: July 28, 2020, 06:07:55 AM »
Internal advice is that Victoria's second wave has peaked and is on the downturn. Although it was only yesterday that we set a record for daily cases.

I think this time around, we tried to apply a moderate lockdown to 80% of the population. In truth, a hard lockdown on 20% of the population would probably suffice. The infection mechanism follows the 80/20 rule.

I guess the issue is that many of the cases are appearing in workplaces which would be considered essential. Aged care being an obvious one. Food processing as well (although in desperate situations said food items can be shipped from interstate).

I'm just glad that masks haven't become a party political thing here (at least not with ALP or Coalition voters), and when I went for a walk on Saturday, there was ~99% compliance with the mask order.

The age care one is interesting. Aged Care Providers subcontract out the workforce, and the subcontractors hire workers for only a couple of shits a week to maintain the facade of the staff being "casual". This means the workers then have to offer their services at multiple centres to do enough shifts to earn a living.

The unions need to win this one. If aged care staff were permanent full time employees at one centre, much of the spread would actually be reduced. But because these staff are generally poor migrant workers, no one seems to give a shit.

dignam

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3209 on: July 28, 2020, 06:19:25 AM »
Recently, I've seen good people I've known for 20+ years say and do things I never would've expected. I just keep reminding myself that it's because of the virus. People aren't their normal selves.

Unfortunately this might be the new normal for a while.  I have noticed some odd behavior as well.

For example, so many people getting puppies when they can't devote the time to raise them.  Who knows what their reasoning is (companionship during the stressful pandemic?), but if you have to post on facebook asking for someone to do basic house training for you, you probably shouldn't be raising a puppy.  It's literally just taking the pup outside to go pee every 30 minutes while it's awake.  And always keeping an eye on it. 

Glad work was flexible with me last year when I got my puppy (which I arranged ahead of time).  Those first few months are vital. 

obstinate

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3210 on: July 28, 2020, 07:55:07 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.
Not sure. What do you have in mind?

former player

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3211 on: July 28, 2020, 09:05:01 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.
Not sure. What do you have in mind?
I do seem to have noticed lately that there seems to be a lot more reports of people reposting bad stuff - racist, anti-semitic, anti-science and so on - as though they have gone off the normal rails of polite social interaction.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3212 on: July 28, 2020, 10:25:07 AM »


Not sure. What do you have in mind?

Nothing specific, but I've seen several instances in my circles of : 1) Making really bad decisions based on poor judgment that I would never expect from that person, and 2) holding opinions on our current situation that don't align with the facts.

It's just an observation, I think stress in general has a real impact on human judgment but this seems to be another level.  In any case, this event has been a learning experience for me about humanity on several levels.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2020, 10:26:42 AM by HBFIRE »

MudPuppy

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3213 on: July 28, 2020, 10:31:16 AM »
I think there's lots of evidence that stress, especially chronic stress, impacts decision making ability.

LWYRUP

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3214 on: July 28, 2020, 11:23:40 AM »
I feel like I am seeing more bizarre public freakouts on blogs and stuff.  I guess people are filming more but shouldn't everyone not even be in public to begin with? 

I definitely think the virus / economy / election cycle has a lot to do with it. 

I'm definitely steering far clear of any crowds right now. 

habanero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3215 on: July 29, 2020, 07:11:29 AM »
According to this report, a surveyed sample of US adults believe that 9% of the US population has died from Covid-19 (225 times the confirmed number). The numbers are off the charts for all five countries surveyed (on last page of report).

https://www.kekstcnc.com/media/2793/kekstcnc_research_covid-19_opinion_tracker_wave-4.pdf

ender

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3216 on: July 29, 2020, 07:37:57 AM »
According to this report, a surveyed sample of US adults believe that 9% of the US population has died from Covid-19 (225 times the confirmed number). The numbers are off the charts for all five countries surveyed (on last page of report).

https://www.kekstcnc.com/media/2793/kekstcnc_research_covid-19_opinion_tracker_wave-4.pdf

This doesn't surprise me at all.

Particularly since their questions are unclear, does the question "How many people in your country have died from coronavirus?" mean percentage of the country as a whole? Or of confirmed cases?

Either way, it's been about four months of constant media attention on covid. It's not surprising that people who are less informed, which is probably most people unfortunately, would think covid is considerably more widespread/lethal than it has been so far.


frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3217 on: July 29, 2020, 07:38:56 AM »
I know people are stupid, but that is absolutely mind boggling.  You think something has killed 9% of the entire population, and you can't even be bother to spend 30 seconds to fucking google it and find out the actual numbers?  Do they really think 1 out of every 11 people is dead? Don't they know a large enough sample of people to instantly realize those numbers can't be true?

habanero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3218 on: July 29, 2020, 07:47:23 AM »
My initial thought was a systematic misinterpretation of the question (% of population vs % of cases), but you never know with people, numbers and statistics.

RetiredAt63

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3219 on: July 29, 2020, 07:47:45 AM »
I know people are stupid, but that is absolutely mind boggling.  You think something has killed 9% of the entire population, and you can't even be bother to spend 30 seconds to fucking google it and find out the actual numbers?  Do they really think 1 out of every 11 people is dead? Don't they know a large enough sample of people to instantly realize those numbers can't be true?

A lot of people are bad at math.

GuitarStv

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3220 on: July 29, 2020, 07:49:10 AM »
11% of Americans say that they will never wear a mask in public.  I bet if 9% of y'all died that would change pretty quickly.

RetiredAt63

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3221 on: July 29, 2020, 07:53:39 AM »
11% of Americans say that they will never wear a mask in public.  I bet if 9% of y'all died that would change pretty quickly.

Thats 89% who would.  If those who say they would wear a mask actually do consistently wear a mask, it would be a big help.

All of Eastern Ontario, including Ottawa, is supposed to wear a mask inside, and people are doing it.  I'm  not seeing people collapse from the strain.  It's possible.

dignam

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3222 on: July 29, 2020, 08:12:28 AM »
I'll say in my county (in the US) after the mask mandate started a few weeks ago, I don't think I've seen a single person maskless in a public building yet.  Most places will turn you away if not wearing a mask I believe.  For sure all government buildings.

ender

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3223 on: July 29, 2020, 08:35:52 AM »
My initial thought was a systematic misinterpretation of the question (% of population vs % of cases), but you never know with people, numbers and statistics.

If you read through the report, the questions are poorly worded and unless they were asked differently than presented are likely to result in people putting higher numbers.

frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3224 on: July 29, 2020, 09:42:06 AM »
My initial thought was a systematic misinterpretation of the question (% of population vs % of cases), but you never know with people, numbers and statistics.

That still doesn't explain it.  They thought 20% of people caught the virus, and 9% died.  Even if you think they understood the question as how many people who have caught the virus have died, they are still orders of magnitude off.  No matter how they interpreted those questions their beliefs are very disconnected from reality, but you can find the actual numbers published on dozens of websites.  It's so easy to look up and find out how many have actually died.

I know people are bad at math, but this is some seriously elementary math.  I don't even understand how someone can function in life without being able to perform such simple math.  The study says it's nationally representative, so I assume they aren't taking these polls in some kind of care home of mentally unfit people.  Apparently it's just free range mentally unfit people that are representative of our actual population. 

Or maybe these people just don't follow anything and were not prepared at all, like if you asked me how many people die from leukemia each year.  100? 1,000?, 10,000? I have no fucking idea, and I spend exactly 0% of my life worrying about leukemia, even though I'm aware of it and I know it kills people.  Still, if I was part of a survey and had to give an answer it would probably seem completely disconnected from reality, because it is and would just be made up on the spot. 

KarefulKactus15

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3225 on: July 29, 2020, 09:48:04 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.

Can confirm! I recently quit my job of 10 years to take a year off and work on starting a second business.

Could be poor judgement, we'll find out.

Caoineag

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3226 on: July 29, 2020, 10:00:06 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.

Oh good, it's not just my friend then. She has always been prone to magical thinking but she has definitely crossed over to conspiracy theorists territory. She even said mask wearing was a conspiracy... she actually sent me the cdc link to the hair stylist case and used that as proof masks don't work...

Fortunately she is doing what she is required to since she is pregnant and doesn't want to get covid while pregnant but I still expect her to be one of the first ones with it in my circle given who she socializes with.

HPstache

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3227 on: July 29, 2020, 10:07:16 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.

Oh good, it's not just my friend then. She has always been prone to magical thinking but she has definitely crossed over to conspiracy theorists territory. She even said mask wearing was a conspiracy... she actually sent me the cdc link to the hair stylist case and used that as proof masks don't work...

Fortunately she is doing what she is required to since she is pregnant and doesn't want to get covid while pregnant but I still expect her to be one of the first ones with it in my circle given who she socializes with.

I think there is one fair mask conspiracy theory (if it can even be called that) that when the original recommendation that CDC, WHO, etc. were saying that masks don't work in the early days of COVID it was to keep the public from panic buying N95 masks and save them for health care workers.  Like I said, maybe this does not qualify as a conspiracy theory, but it checks a lot of boxes to fit in that category.

GuitarStv

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3228 on: July 29, 2020, 10:16:37 AM »
Has anyone noticed people's judgment being severely impacted since covid/lockdown?  I know several examples in my personal circles where people seem to have lost good judgment -- sometimes to the extreme.  There seems to be significant psychological impact that I would have never expected.

Oh good, it's not just my friend then. She has always been prone to magical thinking but she has definitely crossed over to conspiracy theorists territory. She even said mask wearing was a conspiracy... she actually sent me the cdc link to the hair stylist case and used that as proof masks don't work...

Fortunately she is doing what she is required to since she is pregnant and doesn't want to get covid while pregnant but I still expect her to be one of the first ones with it in my circle given who she socializes with.

I think there is one fair mask conspiracy theory (if it can even be called that) that when the original recommendation that CDC, WHO, etc. were saying that masks don't work in the early days of COVID it was to keep the public from panic buying N95 masks and save them for health care workers.  Like I said, maybe this does not qualify as a conspiracy theory, but it checks a lot of boxes to fit in that category.

Is it a conspiracy if they admitted that this was the case?

ericrugiero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3229 on: July 29, 2020, 10:18:21 AM »
Or maybe these people just don't follow anything and were not prepared at all, like if you asked me how many people die from leukemia each year.  100? 1,000?, 10,000? I have no fucking idea, and I spend exactly 0% of my life worrying about leukemia, even though I'm aware of it and I know it kills people.  Still, if I was part of a survey and had to give an answer it would probably seem completely disconnected from reality, because it is and would just be made up on the spot.

True, but leukemia hasn't been on the news nonstop for the last few months.  Even if you don't watch the news, people are talking about it, people have lost jobs, most people have gotten stimulus checks, people are wearing masks, etc.  You would think most people would at least be within one order of magnitude of the deaths and cases. 

Part of the reason the perceived numbers are so much higher than reality is probably because of the nonstop news cycle making it sound so bad.  We are at almost 150,000 reported deaths (Johns Hopkins Data) in the USA through about 4 months.  Average flu deaths are probably close to 40,000 per flu season (based on a glance at CDC data since 2010).  The flu season is also about 4 months.  So, by those rough numbers COVID has been about 4 times worse than the flu but has had well over 100 times the coverage (this is my wild guess).  If you base the expected death rate on increased news coverage vs actual numbers you would assume the numbers were MUCH higher.  My mother died from the flu in the 2017/2018 flu season which was a bad one with over 60,000 deaths.  I remember a couple passing comments in the news that the flu season was bad that year but it was pretty minimal coverage. 

Please note that I understand there are reasons for the increased news coverage such as:
- Flu season is predictable every years and stops at a predictable time.  We don't know how much worse COVID will get or when it will stop. 
- COVID is new and different.  New things are scary. 
- Political reasons (enough said)

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3230 on: July 29, 2020, 10:39:12 AM »
The CDC and the WHO really messed up the mask thing early on. The communication around masks was premature, really bad and confusing.

All organizations are made up of fallible people. When the organization is tasked with tracking a fast moving, emerging risk that is going to take hundreds of thousands of lives, those mistakes are going to be magnified.

To me, this is a much simpler explanation for bad things happening that almost every conspiracy theory I've ever heard.

Shit happens. People make mistakes.

 

frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3231 on: July 29, 2020, 11:21:46 AM »
And it would be a terrible, terrible strategy to completely nerf your credibility by saying "don't use masks! They DON'T work!" when your intent was just to keep the supply for medical professionals.  The message itself isn't even coherent.  Don't use masks, they don't work! But also we absolutely NEED them for the healthcare professionals!

I mean, wtf? It's not effective, but also we need them because they are super effective?  What a fucked up backward message.

https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1233725785283932160
 

dougules

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3232 on: July 29, 2020, 11:51:02 AM »
Or maybe these people just don't follow anything and were not prepared at all, like if you asked me how many people die from leukemia each year.  100? 1,000?, 10,000? I have no fucking idea, and I spend exactly 0% of my life worrying about leukemia, even though I'm aware of it and I know it kills people.  Still, if I was part of a survey and had to give an answer it would probably seem completely disconnected from reality, because it is and would just be made up on the spot.

True, but leukemia hasn't been on the news nonstop for the last few months.  Even if you don't watch the news, people are talking about it, people have lost jobs, most people have gotten stimulus checks, people are wearing masks, etc.  You would think most people would at least be within one order of magnitude of the deaths and cases. 

Part of the reason the perceived numbers are so much higher than reality is probably because of the nonstop news cycle making it sound so bad.  We are at almost 150,000 reported deaths (Johns Hopkins Data) in the USA through about 4 months.  Average flu deaths are probably close to 40,000 per flu season (based on a glance at CDC data since 2010).  The flu season is also about 4 months.  So, by those rough numbers COVID has been about 4 times worse than the flu but has had well over 100 times the coverage (this is my wild guess).  If you base the expected death rate on increased news coverage vs actual numbers you would assume the numbers were MUCH higher.  My mother died from the flu in the 2017/2018 flu season which was a bad one with over 60,000 deaths.  I remember a couple passing comments in the news that the flu season was bad that year but it was pretty minimal coverage. 

Please note that I understand there are reasons for the increased news coverage such as:
- Flu season is predictable every years and stops at a predictable time.  We don't know how much worse COVID will get or when it will stop. 
- COVID is new and different.  New things are scary. 
- Political reasons (enough said)

The only reason we aren't worse off is because COVID has been in the news non-stop.  To put it in a different context, we've already had at least 4 times as many deaths as an average flu season after still having made large sacrifices to slow the spread.  Where would we be if we had not?  It's also ongoing, so who knows where we will end up by the time it has all played out. 

And it's sad that it's been made political by people who don't want to take it seriously.  Most countries are taking this seriously, and I don't think they're doing it just to affect American politics. 

And yes, COVID-19 actually is new and maybe should be a tad scary.  Unlike the flu there are still a lot of unknowns with this virus.  A recent study suggested that a majority of middle-aged people who had had even mild cases of COVID-19 may have serious heart damage. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/covid-19-and-the-heart-two-new-studies-offer-insights/ar-BB17imFH?li=BBnb7Kz

I'm not trying to argue the details of this particular study.  That's not my point.  My point is that we're playing around with a disease that we have not yet had a chance to really understand like we do the flu.  We really don't know what risks we would be taking by letting it spread unchecked.  And to put it in context for those who can only think in terms of the economy, what are the long-term economic effects of a significant portion of the workforce having chronic health problems?

dougules

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3233 on: July 29, 2020, 11:58:20 AM »
The CDC and the WHO really messed up the mask thing early on. The communication around masks was premature, really bad and confusing.

All organizations are made up of fallible people. When the organization is tasked with tracking a fast moving, emerging risk that is going to take hundreds of thousands of lives, those mistakes are going to be magnified.

To me, this is a much simpler explanation for bad things happening that almost every conspiracy theory I've ever heard.

Shit happens. People make mistakes.

What do you expect when half of American politicians are making it their top goal to tear down government institutions like the CDC?  It's amazing they're as functional as they are as much neglect and intentional dismantling as federal agencies are getting. 

Spud

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3234 on: July 29, 2020, 12:03:38 PM »
Please note that I understand there are reasons for the increased news coverage such as:
- Flu season is predictable every years and stops at a predictable time.  We don't know how much worse COVID will get or when it will stop.

This is the big issue. COVID-19 is doing way more damage than a bad flu season, at a time of year that can be thought of as the "flu off-season" i.e. flu is a non-issue.

Imagine what COVID-19 is going to be capable off when it forms a tag team with the seasonal flu from October to February. The US has been experiencing its highest daily death counts since late May in the last week or so after it looked like everything was fine and it was tapering off. There is only so long you can hold out when you're getting 50,00 to 75,000 new cases per day.

I know, I know, people keep saying that an increase in new cases is just because testing has improved etc. Why then, since the start of this thing has every country that has seen a rise in cases, eventually followed that with a rise in deaths? Literally every country (and the world as a whole) you can see this pattern. There is a 4 to 6 week lag, but eventually those deaths start rising again.

Nearly 153,000 deaths in the US right now. End of August, you could be up at 200,000, and you still won't be anywhere near the winter.

JGS1980

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3235 on: July 29, 2020, 12:15:41 PM »
Please note that I understand there are reasons for the increased news coverage such as:
- Flu season is predictable every years and stops at a predictable time.  We don't know how much worse COVID will get or when it will stop.

This is the big issue. COVID-19 is doing way more damage than a bad flu season, at a time of year that can be thought of as the "flu off-season" i.e. flu is a non-issue.

Imagine what COVID-19 is going to be capable off when it forms a tag team with the seasonal flu from October to February. The US has been experiencing its highest daily death counts since late May in the last week or so after it looked like everything was fine and it was tapering off. There is only so long you can hold out when you're getting 50,00 to 75,000 new cases per day.

I know, I know, people keep saying that an increase in new cases is just because testing has improved etc. Why then, since the start of this thing has every country that has seen a rise in cases, eventually followed that with a rise in deaths? Literally every country (and the world as a whole) you can see this pattern. There is a 4 to 6 week lag, but eventually those deaths start rising again.

Nearly 153,000 deaths in the US right now. End of August, you could be up at 200,000, and you still won't be anywhere near the winter.

Ericrugio's argument is bunk. C'mon, you are STILL comparing Covid-19 to the Flu 6 months later? When's the last time you saw Flu kill 20,000 New Yorkers in a month? Really do we keep having to explain this?

In response to Spud, however, I take a bit of a contrary stance. Because so many more people are being careful with hygiene precautions and social distancing, I expect it to be a fairly mild Flu season this 2020-2021 winter, and thus very few Flu deaths will occur.

P.S. I'm a Family Doctor and a I see sick people for a living. Have not been seeing very many upper respiratory infections of any kind (except for Covid) since March.

habanero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3236 on: July 29, 2020, 01:19:13 PM »
Over here the flu season ended completely once Covid messirements were put in place. The graph just went to zero plain and simple.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 03:14:16 PM by habaneroNorway »

Watchmaker

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3237 on: July 29, 2020, 01:29:55 PM »
Over here the flu season ended completely once Covid messirements were put in place. The graph just went to zero Platon and simple.

I do hold out hope that this could signal a real sea change in how we deal with the flu, and also working while ill.

I never thought much about the flu before. I didn't routinely get the flu shot. I just didn't view the flu as much of a risk. And for myself it wasn't, but I wasn't thinking through the implications of transmitting it to others who were more vulnerable. I know I'll be much more careful going forward about spreading the flu, and I'll never go in to the office sick again.

LWYRUP

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3238 on: July 29, 2020, 01:34:18 PM »
Over here the flu season ended completely once Covid messirements were put in place. The graph just went to zero Platon and simple.

I do hold out hope that this could signal a real sea change in how we deal with the flu, and also working while ill.

I never thought much about the flu before. I didn't routinely get the flu shot. I just didn't view the flu as much of a risk. And for myself it wasn't, but I wasn't thinking through the implications of transmitting it to others who were more vulnerable. I know I'll be much more careful going forward about spreading the flu, and I'll never go in to the office sick again.

Yes, I hope we have some long term cultural changes from this.  Like, wearing a mask on the subway when you have a cold.  That should be considered a standard common courtesy.

ericrugiero

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3239 on: July 29, 2020, 01:36:43 PM »
Ericrugio's argument is bunk. C'mon, you are STILL comparing Covid-19 to the Flu 6 months later? When's the last time you saw Flu kill 20,000 New Yorkers in a month? Really do we keep having to explain this?

You didn't understand my point.  I'm NOT saying Covid is just another Flu.  I was theorizing about why so many people are WAY out of the ballpark on the real numbers of Covid infections and deaths.  It's clearly worse than the flu and should be taken seriously.  That said, a comparison of how much worse than the flu it is can still be useful to understand how bad things really are.  We just need to keep in mind that it's not over and the numbers are continuing to grow (as I clearly pointed out in my earlier post). 

dignam

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3240 on: July 29, 2020, 01:46:16 PM »
Should also be mentioned that the measures taken to slow the spread of Covid will also slow the spread of the flu and colds, so you cannot simply add the standard numbers together and say it will be X times worse when flu season arrives.  I usually get sick once between January and April; I haven't been sick in over a year now.  Definitely due to extra precautions taken by me and others around me due to Covid.

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3241 on: July 29, 2020, 03:11:37 PM »
Ericrugio's argument is bunk. C'mon, you are STILL comparing Covid-19 to the Flu 6 months later? When's the last time you saw Flu kill 20,000 New Yorkers in a month? Really do we keep having to explain this?

You didn't understand my point.  I'm NOT saying Covid is just another Flu.  I was theorizing about why so many people are WAY out of the ballpark on the real numbers of Covid infections and deaths.  It's clearly worse than the flu and should be taken seriously.  That said, a comparison of how much worse than the flu it is can still be useful to understand how bad things really are.  We just need to keep in mind that it's not over and the numbers are continuing to grow (as I clearly pointed out in my earlier post).

While you did make it a point to acknowledge those caveats, I still think the idea of comparing Covid deaths to a normal flu season confuses the conversation rather than furthering it. As other have suggested, the impacts of a virus during normal human activities compared to the impacts of a virus with significant changes in the populations' behavior doesn't tell us anything about how dangerous the virus is.

To give a tiny glimpse of how much difference the shutdown and behavioral modifications have made:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01538-8

I'll agree with your initial point that the non-stop coverage has perhaps made people think the death count is higher than it really is, but then again, is that a bad thing? If we had waited until the death count was more concerning to focus our collective attention on this problem, it would have been much too late.

Also, I suspect the responses would have been different if the numerical counts were included with those percentages. People are generally bad at relating percentages to counts. Tell people that something kills .1% of the world population every year and they might think, no big deal. Tell them it kills 7.8 million people and I suspect you would get a different reaction.

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3242 on: July 29, 2020, 03:37:50 PM »
That said, a comparison of how much worse than the flu it is can still be useful to understand how bad things really are.  We just need to keep in mind that it's not over and the numbers are continuing to grow (as I clearly pointed out in my earlier post).

Sorry to harp on this, but I like to look at things from as many angles as possible.

Consider the number of annual influenza related deaths in New Zealand(400-500) and compare it to the number of coronavirus related deaths in the last 4 months (22). So Covid deaths in the US are ~400% of normal annual flu deaths but in New Zealand they are only 5% of annual flu deaths. If this is (more or less) the same virus, this suggests how significant of a variable our behavior can be. Without controlling for behavior, there's really no reason to compare total flu deaths to Covid deaths, at least not in the short term.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 03:42:27 PM by Davnasty »

skp

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3243 on: July 29, 2020, 04:57:53 PM »
Ericrugio's argument is bunk. C'mon, you are STILL comparing Covid-19 to the Flu 6 months later? When's the last time you saw Flu kill 20,000 New Yorkers in a month? Really do we keep having to explain this?

You didn't understand my point.  I'm NOT saying Covid is just another Flu.  I was theorizing about why so many people are WAY out of the ballpark on the real numbers of Covid infections and deaths.  It's clearly worse than the flu and should be taken seriously.  That said, a comparison of how much worse than the flu it is can still be useful to understand how bad things really are.  We just need to keep in mind that it's not over and the numbers are continuing to grow (as I clearly pointed out in my earlier post).

While you did make it a point to acknowledge those caveats, I still think the idea of comparing Covid deaths to a normal flu season confuses the conversation rather than furthering it. As other have suggested, the impacts of a virus during normal human activities compared to the impacts of a virus with significant changes in the populations' behavior doesn't tell us anything about how dangerous the virus is.

To give a tiny glimpse of how much difference the shutdown and behavioral modifications have made:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01538-8

I'll agree with your initial point that the non-stop coverage has perhaps made people think the death count is higher than it really is, but then again, is that a bad thing? If we had waited until the death count was more concerning to focus our collective attention on this problem, it would have been much too late.

Also, I suspect the responses would have been different if the numerical counts were included with those percentages. People are generally bad at relating percentages to counts. Tell people that something kills .1% of the world population every year and they might think, no big deal. Tell them it kills 7.8 million people and I suspect you would get a different reaction.

I can think of one thing.  Don't you think it ligitimizes peoples distrust with news coverage. 

K_in_the_kitchen

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3244 on: July 29, 2020, 05:30:09 PM »
Over here the flu season ended completely once Covid messirements were put in place. The graph just went to zero Platon and simple.

I do hold out hope that this could signal a real sea change in how we deal with the flu, and also working while ill.

I never thought much about the flu before. I didn't routinely get the flu shot. I just didn't view the flu as much of a risk. And for myself it wasn't, but I wasn't thinking through the implications of transmitting it to others who were more vulnerable. I know I'll be much more careful going forward about spreading the flu, and I'll never go in to the office sick again.

Yes, I hope we have some long term cultural changes from this.  Like, wearing a mask on the subway when you have a cold.  That should be considered a standard common courtesy.

I agree, in the future I doubt I'll ever leave my house without a mask on if I am sick, even if it's the common cold.  And during cold and flu season I may choose to wear a mask in stores to help protect myself.  I also hope employers and schools get much better about not making people come in when they're sick.  I think of all the times I had to work when I was sick, and there was no option not to.  I'd med up and go spread my germs around (seriously -- I handled money and receipts all day long, along with sitting with customers to open accounts, etc.).  DH gets 6 paid sick days per year, so he often goes in when he's just coming down with something because he doesn't want to waste a day and then need it a couple of days later if he gets really sick.  This happens all the time at his workplace, with many employees, and before our kids went to college, 9 times out of 10 when an illness struck at our house he was the first one to get sick because he was exposed at work and then brought it home to us.  Just last year DS was terribly ill and asked his instructor if he could take the midterm on another day, but the answer was no and she highly suggested he come in and take his midterm as to not negatively impact his grade.  I had to drive him and wait, his fever was high, and along with the chills and fatigue, he couldn't even drive.  This kind of stuff has to change

Abe

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3245 on: July 29, 2020, 06:19:50 PM »

In response to Spud, however, I take a bit of a contrary stance. Because so many more people are being careful with hygiene precautions and social distancing, I expect it to be a fairly mild Flu season this 2020-2021 winter, and thus very few Flu deaths will occur.

P.S. I'm a Family Doctor and a I see sick people for a living. Have not been seeing very many upper respiratory infections of any kind (except for Covid) since March.

Do you think that coinfection with both in those who ultimately contract covid will be an issue? Presumably those who are at high risk of acquiring one will be high risk for acquiring the other. I agree that 1+1 doesn’t = 3, but it’s too early to predict deaths one way or other. Definitely fewer cases, but not necessarily fewer deaths.

deborah

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3246 on: July 29, 2020, 07:41:55 PM »
Ericrugio's argument is bunk. C'mon, you are STILL comparing Covid-19 to the Flu 6 months later? When's the last time you saw Flu kill 20,000 New Yorkers in a month? Really do we keep having to explain this?

You didn't understand my point.  I'm NOT saying Covid is just another Flu.  I was theorizing about why so many people are WAY out of the ballpark on the real numbers of Covid infections and deaths.  It's clearly worse than the flu and should be taken seriously.  That said, a comparison of how much worse than the flu it is can still be useful to understand how bad things really are.  We just need to keep in mind that it's not over and the numbers are continuing to grow (as I clearly pointed out in my earlier post).

While you did make it a point to acknowledge those caveats, I still think the idea of comparing Covid deaths to a normal flu season confuses the conversation rather than furthering it. As other have suggested, the impacts of a virus during normal human activities compared to the impacts of a virus with significant changes in the populations' behavior doesn't tell us anything about how dangerous the virus is.

To give a tiny glimpse of how much difference the shutdown and behavioral modifications have made:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01538-8

I'll agree with your initial point that the non-stop coverage has perhaps made people think the death count is higher than it really is, but then again, is that a bad thing? If we had waited until the death count was more concerning to focus our collective attention on this problem, it would have been much too late.

Also, I suspect the responses would have been different if the numerical counts were included with those percentages. People are generally bad at relating percentages to counts. Tell people that something kills .1% of the world population every year and they might think, no big deal. Tell them it kills 7.8 million people and I suspect you would get a different reaction.
In Australia it’s winter. We were asked to all have the flu vaccine so that hospitals could concentrate on covid19 rather than being full of flu patients at this time of year. Together with the covid19 practices - social distancing etc. - this has caused the flu outbreak to collapse this year -

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-13/flu-cases-drop-amid-coronavirus-restrictions-statistics-show/12332204

So far this year we’ve had 36 deaths from the flu versus 705 in the whole 2019 season -

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-surveil-ozflu-flucurr.htm

And 176 deaths from covid19 -

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

Our hospitals have more beds free than they usually do at this time of year.

To put this into perspective, we have about one tenth the population of the USA.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 07:49:04 PM by deborah »

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3247 on: July 29, 2020, 07:47:03 PM »
Our state (Victoria) provides an interesting and illuminating case study. We've had a massive jump in numbers today to 723 (for context, previously the whole of Australia had never recorded more than 500 cases in a day, so 723 for our state alone is a LOT) but our Premier has said the R number is hovering around 1 and has also said that further lockdowns are not planned and that community transmission is not the main source. It seems that the major source of transmission is from work and specifically aged care homes. I suspect a lot of workers might work at multiple such homes and that's how it's spreading. The high number of deaths reported recently also corresponds with this hypothesis.

How do you shut down aged care homes? You can't, but you can mandate that workers can only go to one employer and can be pre-emptively be locked down (at their homes) outside of work if they work in high-risk industries.

Quote
“You cannot go to work if you are sick. You simply can't. All you will be doing is spreading the virus and putting people at risk.”

Premier Daniel Andrews said today’s alarming case increase is driven mostly from aged care but he still thinks too many people are still showing up to the workplace when they have symptoms.

"Too many people are going to work, even some when they have a positive test result," he said.

"That's a small number, though. I think a bigger number are people that are, between having the test taken and getting the results, they are still presenting to work. And for so long as that continues, then we will continue to see numbers go up."

The biggest challenge seems to be convincing workers to not work when clearly feeling symptoms. Pretty selfish to do that, if you ask me. It's clear that if you have any symptoms you need to get tested and stop bloody going back to work. There's even covid leave paid both to those who have to do a 2-week lockdown and those who have to do a 48-hour lockdown while awaiting test results.

Maybe next time around we just impose early and pre-emptive restrictions on high-risk industries. Pay them $1500 over a fortnight to not go to work for those 2 weeks.


alsoknownasDean

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3248 on: July 29, 2020, 08:21:14 PM »
Our state (Victoria) provides an interesting and illuminating case study. We've had a massive jump in numbers today to 723 (for context, previously the whole of Australia had never recorded more than 500 cases in a day, so 723 for our state alone is a LOT) but our Premier has said the R number is hovering around 1 and has also said that further lockdowns are not planned and that community transmission is not the main source. It seems that the major source of transmission is from work and specifically aged care homes. I suspect a lot of workers might work at multiple such homes and that's how it's spreading. The high number of deaths reported recently also corresponds with this hypothesis.

How do you shut down aged care homes? You can't, but you can mandate that workers can only go to one employer and can be pre-emptively be locked down (at their homes) outside of work if they work in high-risk industries.

Quote
“You cannot go to work if you are sick. You simply can't. All you will be doing is spreading the virus and putting people at risk.”

Premier Daniel Andrews said today’s alarming case increase is driven mostly from aged care but he still thinks too many people are still showing up to the workplace when they have symptoms.

"Too many people are going to work, even some when they have a positive test result," he said.

"That's a small number, though. I think a bigger number are people that are, between having the test taken and getting the results, they are still presenting to work. And for so long as that continues, then we will continue to see numbers go up."

The biggest challenge seems to be convincing workers to not work when clearly feeling symptoms. Pretty selfish to do that, if you ask me. It's clear that if you have any symptoms you need to get tested and stop bloody going back to work. There's even covid leave paid both to those who have to do a 2-week lockdown and those who have to do a 48-hour lockdown while awaiting test results.

Maybe next time around we just impose early and pre-emptive restrictions on high-risk industries. Pay them $1500 over a fortnight to not go to work for those 2 weeks.

One issue might be that while people might be eligible for payments if they're waiting on test results or test positive, turning down a shift for any reason may jeopardise their chances of being offered shifts in future by that employer. In that situation, some people may decide that they need to go to work in order to ensure continued employment, despite the risks.

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3249 on: July 29, 2020, 09:52:23 PM »
And some people have shown to be be positive for covid with no symptoms and go about their lives while spreading it without a clue that they are doing so. Why would they get tested if they are healthy and feel fine? Why would they call into work or stop going about their business?

Sounds like the genie is out of the bottle if you have 700 today how many more are out there passing it around...


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