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The measures put in place look like they may reduce the casualty rate by an order of magnitude, at least in the US. So, from 1.5-2 million deaths in the US, down to 150,000 to 200,000.
200,000 deaths from Covid-19 would make it about as deadly as the 1957 flu pandemic, which killed over 100,000 Americans. We had half the population as we do today. There was one in the late 1960's that also killed over 100,000 Americans.
200,000 is a pretty high estimate though. If they contain this thing in the next couple weeks, it will be nothing like that. If they can't contain it, the virus will likely run it's course and hopefully go away. At some point, herd immunity would hopefully protect the vulnerable populations.
Spanish Flu had a mortality rate around 2.5-3%, and infected 33% of the global population. COVID-19 probably has a mortality rate of 0.5-1%, but has the potential to infect up to 70% of the world’s population (and more quickly, because it’s quite a bit more infectious). Because the higher percentage of infected people offsets the lower mortality rate (and because the mortality rate goes up if too many people catch it quickly and the hospital system becomes overwhelmed), COVID-19 actually compares pretty well to Spanish Flu in terms of the potential number of people it might kill. It’s not the Black Death or even smallpox, but it’s certainly not “just the flu” or “just a cold” as so many ignorant people dismissively refer to it.
Fortunately we’ve learned a lot about viruses over the last 100 years, and with luck that knowledge, put to effective use, will knock the wind out of COVID-19’s sails and keep the virus from achieving its full killing potential.
200k is best case scenario. 2 million is if we did nothing. It is likely to fall between the two. We'd be quite fortunate to achieve the best case scenario.
That's what people are missing. 100-200k is best case scenario if we do everything almost perfectly. There's a lot of variables at play (many that we don't even know yet) that will make this difficult.
Trump seemed chastened at yesterday's press briefing. It seems that the seriousness of the situation is finally sinking in, after someone in his administration showed him pictures of body bags or something. Now if only he could admit his own inability to deal with the crisis and step aside and let Pence run the show.
But that is not a huge jump from number of deaths per day prior to Covid-19. That cannot be cause for such alarm that we lock down the whole country.
*capital letters are for emphasis, not yelling
700 people in one day died from COVID19. That’s not the same as saying 700 people TOTAL died. That’s just how many died from COVID-19. People are still passing away from other causes as well. We don’t know how many because we can’t just add 700 to the average of 800 deaths- I’m sure some of those with underlying health conditions who passed away due to coronavirus complications would have unfortunately passed away regardless of the virus. But the point is it’s a highly elevated death rate that has overwhelmed our healthcare systems.
Even with extreme self-isolating practices by most people, our doctors and nurses aren’t able to keep up and the projections of deaths DUE TO THE VIRUS are 100,000-200,000. Plus there will still be deaths due to other causes. It’s going to be a heart wrenching couple of months. But always remember- it could have been worse. Had we acted any slower then we would have been looking at mortality rates on par with the Spanish flu.
People are confusing cause and effect, they’re saying 100,000-200,000 isn’t worth self-isolating for months. . What they’re forgetting is that the death toll is that low because of social isolation.
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Originally Posted by Ralph_N_1962
Agree 100%....most who die already have one foot in the grave.
Under the best-case scenario the WH predicts more Americans will die from the coronavirus in the weeks and months to come than died in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined.
I believe Government Information....or information coming from the WH...
.....Is tailored to control/engineer behavior more so than it is to inform the public of actual findings or reality.
It was obvious, when you looked at China and Korea, that all the pictures shown of people going about showed them all wearing masks. If America wanted people to cover their coughs and sneezes, to help prevents the spread, then wearing a mask, scarf or bandanna around the mouth and nose would help keep droplets from being projected on a wide range of surfaces beyond the individual shedding them. Wearing masks, in mass, is beneficial for that reason and not so much that it keeps your from airborne particles.
The reason that we were being told, I believe, that masks really did not help is because we don't have enough of them and there would have been a run on the items leaving health care workers without them. So the message was designed to control or prevent a behavior (a run on masks), more than anything else.
We were also told that everybody does not need to be tested. Again, that was told to the people because there was shortages in the ability to test. They did not want masses of people going out seeking testing because there were not enough tests available and those test were limited to the really sick early on. However, again, massive testing is how the Asian countries got their spread under control. The Asian countries had masks and test for its masses.
The information we are being given is to control behavior due to our nation not being prepared and not being able to nimbly get prepared. It is masking the fact that, for some reason, China and Korea and maybe Japan...are able to better look out for its people than is the US. Our belief in our exceptionalism, or superiority, prevents us from rapidly learning from other nations and seeking the expertise of from other nations and applying it here. We have too much pride to say that we are seeking help from China or Korea on the best approach. Not America! The world comes to America to be saved.....America does not go to the world looking to be saved. That mind set is costing us lives. We did not even want to use the corona virus test created in Germany approved by the WHO, that other nations were successfully using. We had to create our OWN test and that was the only test allowed to be used for weeks....after it took valuable time to create it.
When I hear the information coming from the government......numbers and such. I don't trust them. I think the numbers are designed to elicit compliance to a recommended behavior. Although I do not trust their numbers and claims.....I DO AGREE WITH DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING. The only way to control freedom loving individualistic Americans.....IS TO SCARE THEM. Things will get really bad unless you scare the people into complying with the protocols. Fear and psychology are the only tools one can use in a non authoritarian government. Americans are not going to voluntarily do what is best for the COLLECTIVE.....unless you scare them into doing it.
The Virus is a REAL threat. However, its made a lot worse because we are so divided and individualistic as a society.....and that we are not what we used to be as a nation. We are unprepared. We can't get past the politics of left and right and elections to have a unified populous all on the same page to prevent the spread. Some place more value on the economy. Some place more value on lives. Most of the splits come down to politics.
This isn’t the 14th century and medical care has advanced since then so it is not the Black Death.
When it’s all over I suspect it will be roughly a bad flu season, perhaps twice as many people killed as a typical season or a bit more.
Stick your head back in the sand and stop posting this nonsense please.
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I believe Government Information....or information coming from the WH...
