Some Ask a Taboo Question: Is America Overreacting to Coronavirus?

[ilovethecats]

Hopefully, this link will get you to the MT projections. If not, look around for the MT part. This is from the UW med school group, which is one of the top predictors.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

22 deaths by Aug. 4. April 13 peak. 45 beds needed; 1669 available. 8 ICU beds needed; 85 available. 7 ventilators needed.

I know anything can happen, but stay-in-place order? And ruin much of the MT economy? And totally screw bars/restaurants and many other businesses? And waste opportunity to help kids struggling in school? And Missoula has closed playgrounds for kids? Where are kids who don't have a backyard supposed to go?

And encourage and cause hospitals and surgery centers to not take on routine patients, to keep beds and personnel available? And how about those people who need the routine care and surgeries?

Flu activity in MT through Feb. 29: "Influenza activity continued to increase during week 9 with 1,188 new cases reported.
• Season to date, 8,572 cases, 361 hospitalizations, and nine deaths due to influenza have been
reported."

https://dphhs.mt.gov/Portals/85/publichealth/documents/CDEpi/StatisticsandReports/CurrentActivity/MontanaInfluenzaSummary.pdf

29 highway fatalities to date.

Careful PR. I've found that people get pretty defensive when you mention other viruses and incidents that kill far more people than the Corona. For whatever reason, lives lost to this virus are much more important to lives lost due to other illnesses. I haven't figured out why, but that seems to be what we've learned.

At least their projections of deaths' seem to be getting a bit more realistic. Even Fauchi said yesterday he's optimistic it'd be lower than 100,000 in our country. An expert said this morning he believes much lower than that. I hope he's right, that's still a lot of lives lost.

Meanwhile domestic violence, child abuse and suicides are up. We're really walking a fine line currently.

 

[hokeyfine]

one thing to remember when you are comparing influenza to covid 19, there is a vaccine for influenza and covid 19 appears to have a higher mortality rate.
also, 80% of deaths in children from influenza last year(a bad year) were unvaccinated.

 

[ilovethecats]

one thing to remember when you are comparing influenza to covid 19, there is a vaccine for influenza and covid 19 appears to have a higher mortality rate.
also, 80% of deaths in children from influenza last year(a bad year) were unvaccinated.

I can't and won't dispute that.

One thing good that may come of this is that small group of anti-vac people might decide it just may be worth it to get vaccinated!

I also believe we will have treatment and a vaccine sooner than people think. We have everyone in the world working on this right now and fast-tracking as much as allowed.

I understand why people don't like the comparisons to other viruses and illnesses. It appears to minimalize what we're dealing with. But as I said before the numbers don't lie, and I think we'll have an even clearer view of this in the coming months. The truth is that a very low percentage of people will ever have this virus, of the ones that do a very low percentage will be hospitalized, and of those that are a tiny fraction will die.

I'm fine with the extreme measures taken. If the experts are right, these played a huge part in the death projections not even being close to what they were calling for weeks ago. But I am most certainly in the camp of getting things open and back to spending money as soon as possible.

 

[IdaGriz01]

one thing to remember when you are comparing influenza to covid 19, there is a vaccine for influenza and covid 19 appears to have a higher mortality rate.
also, 80% of deaths in children from influenza last year(a bad year) were unvaccinated.

I can't and won't dispute that.

One thing good that may come of this is that small group of anti-vac people might decide it just may be worth it to get vaccinated!

I also believe we will have treatment and a vaccine sooner than people think. We have everyone in the world working on this right now and fast-tracking as much as allowed.

I understand why people don't like the comparisons to other viruses and illnesses. It appears to minimalize what we're dealing with. But as I said before the numbers don't lie, and I think we'll have an even clearer view of this in the coming months. The truth is that a very low percentage of people will ever have this virus, of the ones that do a very low percentage will be hospitalized, and of those that are a tiny fraction will die.

I'm fine with the extreme measures taken. If the experts are right, these played a huge part in the death projections not even being close to what they were calling for weeks ago. But I am most certainly in the camp of getting things open and back to spending money as soon as possible.

All good points ... and, RE Getting back to spending money. Don't know about other people, but we've started keeping a mental list of things we would like/need to do once we can get out more. Not including the jerks that are buzzing around anyway, I'll bet lots of people are in the same boat. That might be as simple as saying ... "Gee, now we can go out to a nice place for dinner." So I think we could see a lot of pent-up demand come out of the gate when things loosen up. Of course, that might bring on new shortages, but it could get people back to busy in a hurry.

 

[cclarkblues]

I can't and won't dispute that.

One thing good that may come of this is that small group of anti-vac people might decide it just may be worth it to get vaccinated!

I also believe we will have treatment and a vaccine sooner than people think. We have everyone in the world working on this right now and fast-tracking as much as allowed.

I understand why people don't like the comparisons to other viruses and illnesses. It appears to minimalize what we're dealing with. But as I said before the numbers don't lie, and I think we'll have an even clearer view of this in the coming months. The truth is that a very low percentage of people will ever have this virus, of the ones that do a very low percentage will be hospitalized, and of those that are a tiny fraction will die.

I'm fine with the extreme measures taken. If the experts are right, these played a huge part in the death projections not even being close to what they were calling for weeks ago. But I am most certainly in the camp of getting things open and back to spending money as soon as possible.

All good points ... and, RE Getting back to spending money. Don't know about other people, but we've started keeping a mental list of things we would like/need to do once we can get out more. Not including the jerks that are buzzing around anyway, I'll bet lots of people are in the same boat. That might be as simple as saying ... "Gee, now we can go out to a nice place for dinner." So I think we could see a lot of pent-up demand come out of the gate when things loosen up. Of course, that might bring on new shortages, but it could get people back to busy in a hurry.

There are a few things we can do right now for people we do business with. For example yesterday I ordered a half dozen massages from our masseuse for my wife's birthday. It will help her pay a bill or two while she is unable to make a living. Today I plan to order several dozen coffee cards from a great lady that runs several kiosks here in town. I want the folks that I like and do business with still there when this virus blows over.

 

[ilovethecats]

I can't and won't dispute that.

One thing good that may come of this is that small group of anti-vac people might decide it just may be worth it to get vaccinated!

I also believe we will have treatment and a vaccine sooner than people think. We have everyone in the world working on this right now and fast-tracking as much as allowed.

I understand why people don't like the comparisons to other viruses and illnesses. It appears to minimalize what we're dealing with. But as I said before the numbers don't lie, and I think we'll have an even clearer view of this in the coming months. The truth is that a very low percentage of people will ever have this virus, of the ones that do a very low percentage will be hospitalized, and of those that are a tiny fraction will die.

I'm fine with the extreme measures taken. If the experts are right, these played a huge part in the death projections not even being close to what they were calling for weeks ago. But I am most certainly in the camp of getting things open and back to spending money as soon as possible.

All good points ... and, RE Getting back to spending money. Don't know about other people, but we've started keeping a mental list of things we would like/need to do once we can get out more. Not including the jerks that are buzzing around anyway, I'll bet lots of people are in the same boat. That might be as simple as saying ... "Gee, now we can go out to a nice place for dinner." So I think we could see a lot of pent-up demand come out of the gate when things loosen up. Of course, that might bring on new shortages, but it could get people back to busy in a hurry.

I most definitely have! I imagine my wife and I will have some time alone as our three teenagers likely have a list of things they want to do as well! And while I love them to death, can't say I'll hate having a couple days apart!

There's a couple places I have in the back of my mind for dinners the first few nights. I'll likely make a little brewery tour and hit my 4-5 favorites in Bozeman. (I'm still filling up growlers but it'll be nice to sit inside) I'm not a shopper at all but of course during this time I'm coming across things I want that I can only get in the stores so I'll knock those out too.

I'm also shopping around looking for a couple jet skis for the kids this summer so hopefully I can get out and do that when this crap is over.

I can't wait! Hopefully I don't have to a whole lot longer.

 

[PlayerRep]

Here is Trump blaming Obama for bad covid testing:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/06/trumps-bogus-effort-blame-obama-sluggish-coronavirus-testing/

Note that related to bad "testing", not bad "tests". This discussion started when Dutch said that Trump blamed Obama for bad "tests" and noted that tests can't be created until the new virus comes along. Trump had not blamed Obama for bad "tests".

Yes, as I have said previously, Trump et al were incorrect when they referred to a rule proposed by Obama that would have make the testing process/approval more complicated and slow, as the rule was not adopted. Probably a good thing that someone had the good sense to fight the rule proposed by Obama.

 

[PlayerRep]

Hopefully, this link will get you to the MT projections. If not, look around for the MT part. This is from the UW med school group, which is one of the top predictors.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

22 deaths by Aug. 4. April 13 peak. 45 beds needed; 1669 available. 8 ICU beds needed; 85 available. 7 ventilators needed.

I know anything can happen, but stay-in-place order? And ruin much of the MT economy? And totally screw bars/restaurants and many other businesses? And waste opportunity to help kids struggling in school? And Missoula has closed playgrounds for kids? Where are kids who don't have a backyard supposed to go?

And encourage and cause hospitals and surgery centers to not take on routine patients, to keep beds and personnel available? And how about those people who need the routine care and surgeries?

Flu activity in MT through Feb. 29: "Influenza activity continued to increase during week 9 with 1,188 new cases reported.
• Season to date, 8,572 cases, 361 hospitalizations, and nine deaths due to influenza have been
reported."

https://dphhs.mt.gov/Portals/85/publichealth/documents/CDEpi/StatisticsandReports/CurrentActivity/MontanaInfluenzaSummary.pdf

29 highway fatalities to date.

I now see that KPAX is on this, but didn't notice it on the Missoulian (altho I didn't search the Missoulian). Seem like pretty big news to me.

https://www.kpax.com/news/coronavirus/montana-jumps-to-319-covid-19-cases-4-06-2020-monday-afternoon

 

[TCCGRIZ]

This is absolutely horrifying if true . Which I wouldn't put anything past the Chinese government
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/07/report-wuhan-funeral-homes-burned-people-alive/

 

[PlayerRep]

1. "Head Lice Drug Appears to Stop Coronavirus"

"Researchers testing the head lice drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19 have seen promising results in lab studies.

But the research is in its early stages and the drug is yet to be tested on people with COVID-19. There\'s so much we don\'t know, including the right dose and delivery method for people with coronavirus infection.

What is Ivermectin currently used for?

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic agent that was isolated in the 1970s from the fermented broth of a species of bacteria called Streptomyces avermitilis.

The drug has been used since the 1980s to treat and prevent diseases related to parasites in humans, pets and livestock, and works by paralysing invertebrate parasites.

Recent laboratory data from scientists at Monash University and the Doherty Institute suggests Ivermectin is able to stop SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from replicating.
Ivermectin has also been shown to stop other viruses (such as HIV, dengue, influenza and Zika) replicating, at least in the laboratory.

The researchers found Ivermectin had an effect on SARS-CoV-2 after one exposure to the drug. Viral replication was shut down within 24 to 48 hours.

It\'s still not clear exactly how Ivermectin works. But it appears to stop the processes that allow proteins to move within the virus. These proteins would normally dampen the body\'s antiviral response, allowing the virus to replicate and enhance the infection."

Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/AAAlEckOxRICWUnfXYUgsVg

2. "Kelly Clarkson Shows Off Her ‘Cozy’ One-Room Montana Cabin Where Her Family Is Social Distancing

The front door is decorated with a wreath courtesy of Gwen Stefani"

[This may be in the P-Burgh area generally.]

"Clarkson isn’t the only celeb that enjoys spending time out in the wilderness. Check out our gallery of celebs who have homes off-the-grid, including Michael Keaton, John Mayer and Denise Richards, who also live in Montana part-time."

Read in People: https://apple.news/AT7uQ9CAjRHWH1CyXdc0A8w

 

[PlayerRep]

"Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ Slams Virus Lockdowns in Tweetstorm
The investor, who also has an M.D., says the economic costs of the pandemic response are too high."

"Michael Burry, the doctor-turned-investor who famously bet against mortgage securities before the 2008 financial crisis, has taken to Twitter with a controversial message: lockdowns intended to contain the coronavirus pandemic are worse than the disease itself.

Government-directed shutdowns in the U.S., which led to millions of job losses and may trigger one of the country’s deepest-ever economic contractions, aren’t necessary to contain the epidemic and have disproportionately hurt low-income families and minorities, Burry argued in a series of tweets over the past two weeks. He also said some controversial treatments for Covid-19, such as the malaria drug hydroxycloroquine, should be made more widely available.

“Universal stay-at-home is the most devastating economic force in modern history,” Burry wrote in an email to Bloomberg News. “And it is man-made. It very suddenly reverses the gains of underprivileged groups, kills and creates drug addicts, beats and terrorizes women and children in violent now-jobless households, and more. It bleeds deep anguish and suicide.”

Burry has taken on medical policymakers in tweets regarding the illness itself, saying coronavirus infections can be managed through common-sense measures like increased hand-washing and broader testing, without forcing everyone to stay at home. He’s also advocating for wider use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat those who are infected.

[Some of his specific ideas are in the article, but I couldn't cut and paste anymore.'

Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/AK6h2s7ISSJGExb62-4GIfg

 

[PlayerRep]

This is absolutely horrifying if true . Which I wouldn't put anything past the Chinese government
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/07/report-wuhan-funeral-homes-burned-people-alive/

Yipes.

"Locals in Wuhan, where the Chinese coronavirus pandemic originated, have heard screams coming from funeral home furnaces, and some treated in hospitals say they saw workers put living coronavirus patients in body bags, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Monday.

RFA noted that it could not independently verify that the Chinese Communist Party was burning coronavirus patients alive, nor has the Communist Party confirmed or denied the rumors. Yet the rumors persist that, to make room for new patients in Wuhan’s overcrowded hospitals, medical staff chose older patients less likely to survive the infection and shipped them to incinerators while they were still alive and conscious."

 

[Spanky2]

A good solution for old timers.

 

[mcg]

Hopefully, this link will get you to the MT projections. If not, look around for the MT part. This is from the UW med school group, which is one of the top predictors.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

22 deaths by Aug. 4. April 13 peak. 45 beds needed; 1669 available. 8 ICU beds needed; 85 available. 7 ventilators needed.

I know anything can happen, but stay-in-place order? And ruin much of the MT economy? And totally screw bars/restaurants and many other businesses? And waste opportunity to help kids struggling in school? And Missoula has closed playgrounds for kids? Where are kids who don't have a backyard supposed to go?

And encourage and cause hospitals and surgery centers to not take on routine patients, to keep beds and personnel available? And how about those people who need the routine care and surgeries?

Flu activity in MT through Feb. 29: "Influenza activity continued to increase during week 9 with 1,188 new cases reported.
• Season to date, 8,572 cases, 361 hospitalizations, and nine deaths due to influenza have been
reported."

https://dphhs.mt.gov/Portals/85/publichealth/documents/CDEpi/StatisticsandReports/CurrentActivity/MontanaInfluenzaSummary.pdf

29 highway fatalities to date.

Careful PR. I've found that people get pretty defensive when you mention other viruses and incidents that kill far more people than the Corona. For whatever reason, lives lost to this virus are much more important to lives lost due to other illnesses. I haven't figured out why, but that seems to be what we've learned.

At least their projections of deaths' seem to be getting a bit more realistic. Even Fauchi said yesterday he's optimistic it'd be lower than 100,000 in our country. An expert said this morning he believes much lower than that. I hope he's right, that's still a lot of lives lost.

Meanwhile domestic violence, child abuse and suicides are up. We're really walking a fine line currently.

You don't see refrigerator trucks parked behind hospitals to store the bodies during the flu season.

 

[MikeyGriz]

As I posted on another thread:

Meanwhile, influenza, for which we have a vaccine, has killed twice as many people in the US this year(and every year) and there is no talk of social distancing, shutting down schools or businesses, straining medical resources, etc. Financial markets don't crash, store shelves don't run bare, state boundaries don't close. Why the disparate reactions?

Damnit Mikey I’m a lawyer not an epidemiologist for gods sakes. Ok so let me try to answer your right wing taking point question. Well it’s my understanding is it’s because they are different, ones a pandemic and the flu is endemic. The Greek “pan” in pandemic means “all” the people and “epi” means “in” or on the people, get it? Easy peasy am I right? the CDC has a great tutorial on this stuff you should totally look it up) :lol: . No my understanding is that we as humans have been exposed to the 3-4 different kinds of yearly flues for decades and humans have built up some immunities to them which have made them less fatal and contagious and more “epi” or more regional.

Humans have not developed any immunity for covid-19 yet because it was just crossed over to infect humans from animals in like Novemeber of 2019. Now we have between 12,000-55,000flu related deaths on average in a country of 335,000,000. The Spanish flu, the pandemic in 1918, by way of contrast killed 675,000 when the US had a population of only around 100,000,000. So just do the math a pandemic like the Spanish flu could potentially kill over 2 million people in the US today if it went unchecked. It infected over 1/3 of the entire world population and killed over 50 million in 1918 which is a lot. But then again damnit Mikey I’m a doctor not a tailor. (Dan Aykroyd SNL circa 1974ish?) :lol: Any real doctors or real scientists out there want to educate me and Mikey here? Thanks :thumb:

Kind of my point. We have built up some immunity and have a vaccine to the flu yet we will still lose more people this year than to this corona virus in the US. Why are the corona deaths more important than the flu deaths? My answer is because we are sheep being lead by the media and our attention span is about as long as my ****! Remember right before this crisis when we were dying and overwhelming our medical facilities with vaping deaths? Not a peep about that today. Before that the world was going to come to an end over the Australian fires. Before that, before that, before that.... I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay attention to this new virus, but I think the response is Chicken Little-ish and sometimes our responses are just to feel like we are doing something whether it makes a difference or not (buying toilet paper and wearing flimsy masks when we are not sick). Many people's mental status would immediately improve if they would turn off the TV, stay off the internet, put down their phones, and go outside and take a walk and enjoy nature.

 

[argh!]

just had a swab for a covid test, because i have to have an urgent medical procedure soon. feels like i had a q-tip shoved into my brain. ouch.

 

[Htowngriz]

Damnit Mikey I’m a lawyer not an epidemiologist for gods sakes. Ok so let me try to answer your right wing taking point question. Well it’s my understanding is it’s because they are different, ones a pandemic and the flu is endemic. The Greek “pan” in pandemic means “all” the people and “epi” means “in” or on the people, get it? Easy peasy am I right? the CDC has a great tutorial on this stuff you should totally look it up) :lol: . No my understanding is that we as humans have been exposed to the 3-4 different kinds of yearly flues for decades and humans have built up some immunities to them which have made them less fatal and contagious and more “epi” or more regional.

Humans have not developed any immunity for covid-19 yet because it was just crossed over to infect humans from animals in like Novemeber of 2019. Now we have between 12,000-55,000flu related deaths on average in a country of 335,000,000. The Spanish flu, the pandemic in 1918, by way of contrast killed 675,000 when the US had a population of only around 100,000,000. So just do the math a pandemic like the Spanish flu could potentially kill over 2 million people in the US today if it went unchecked. It infected over 1/3 of the entire world population and killed over 50 million in 1918 which is a lot. But then again damnit Mikey I’m a doctor not a tailor. (Dan Aykroyd SNL circa 1974ish?) :lol: Any real doctors or real scientists out there want to educate me and Mikey here? Thanks :thumb:

Kind of my point. We have built up some immunity and have a vaccine to the flu yet we will still lose more people this year than to this corona virus in the US. Why are the corona deaths more important than the flu deaths? My answer is because we are sheep being lead by the media and our attention span is about as long as my ****! Remember right before this crisis when we were dying and overwhelming our medical facilities with vaping deaths? Not a peep about that today. Before that the world was going to come to an end over the Australian fires. Before that, before that, before that.... I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay attention to this new virus, but I think the response is Chicken Little-ish and sometimes our responses are just to feel like we are doing something whether it makes a difference or not (buying toilet paper and wearing flimsy masks when we are not sick). Many people's mental status would immediately improve if they would turn off the TV, stay off the internet, put down their phones, and go outside and take a walk and enjoy nature.

Nobody knows how many will ultimately succumb to Covid, be we do know that the number would be substantially higher if we didn't do anything to slow the spread of it. We're talking in the millions.

 

[PlayerRep]

1. Bullock extended stay in place and school close orders to April 24.

2. Heard on NPR that Rocky Mountain Labs in Hamilton is working on a vaccine. One of many places doing this.

 

[PlayerRep]

Careful PR. I've found that people get pretty defensive when you mention other viruses and incidents that kill far more people than the Corona. For whatever reason, lives lost to this virus are much more important to lives lost due to other illnesses. I haven't figured out why, but that seems to be what we've learned.

At least their projections of deaths' seem to be getting a bit more realistic. Even Fauchi said yesterday he's optimistic it'd be lower than 100,000 in our country. An expert said this morning he believes much lower than that. I hope he's right, that's still a lot of lives lost.

Meanwhile domestic violence, child abuse and suicides are up. We're really walking a fine line currently.

You don't see refrigerator trucks parked behind hospitals to store the bodies during the flu season.

Do you see refrigerator trucks parked anywhere other than NYC?

One size does not fit all.

 

[PlayerRep]

just had a swab for a covid test, because i have to have an urgent medical procedure soon. feels like i had a q-tip shoved into my brain. ouch.

Take care of yourself.