I agree with a lot of this. I know even mentioning Trump causes issues but I watched his entire press conference yesterday and I thought his overall message was good. He’s on the more optimistic and I’m on the more concerned side but overall the virus has been very minimal in the Americas. We do need to remember this. I think you two might have found common ground lol. However, the issue isn’t necessarily mortality it’s the severe and critical cases. They are about 10x more numerous than the flu and we are dealing with a virus that seems to be MUCH more contagious than the flu. A recent non peer reviewed study out of Los Alamos lab puts it closer to the level of smallpox R0. If this spreads like the flu (or worse) we are ****ed. I know the flu is kind of our only guideline at this point but the govt needs to get a massive amount of resources prepared without completely panicking people. Lastly, we don’t know if reinfection is an issue or something else going on with it. I think we are months away from knowing if we can contain this here. I don’t think we can. And one more thing... Iran is ****ing everyone right now. They are the black swan of this black swan event. No one was looking at them as a major risk and boom. We will get a true sense of how bad this thing is by watching them and hopefully getting realistic numbers. Without control or quarantine we can see that it’s spread all over the country within a very short period.
Unfortunately Iran is basically refusing to release numbers, so everything is skewed and then the other stuff you mention, like WTH are they doing? With that said, I have seen some higher R0 numbers too and the range is ridiculous - ~like 2-6... And ~5-7 is smallpox... So.. the best case is low mortality being true/warm weather working... But I think at this point do your best and see what the R0 looks like in other places EU/USA. Iran is definitely not helping atm
I missed this... ______ The first locally caught case, a patient in Northern California, was in intensive care for four days before testing from the CDC confirmed she had the disease. https://news.google.com/articles/CA...GCAowlIECMLBMMJ-mHg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
Profit seekers have done their best to do away with empty beds. We are now 32nd out of the 40 richest countries in beds per 1,000. Dropped from about 8 per 1,000 to a little more than 2 since 1970. Our hospitals will be overwhelmed. The math is unforgiving.
A lot of public health professionals concerned about hourly workers with no sick leave and crappy or no insurance. Those folks will treat it like a common cold and show up to work regardless of how they are feeling.
The concerning part is that unlike every other country the hospitals here are in competition with each other rather and are unaccustomed to working together. They are siloed and when there is a mass event that stretches resources they are in a terrible disadvantage for organization and coordination for the common good. But socialized medicine is of course the root of all evil so none of that matters.
Don't want to downplay the seriousness of the virus (it needs to be treated seriously), but from what Singapore has seen so far I think it can be managed to the point where the majority can continue on with their daily routines with measures that most countries can implement. For context, Singapore is extremely vulnerable to the disease and further outbreaks can't be ruled out - it is a physically tiny, extremely dense city of 6.5mil people, large migrant working population, around 1mil of which are PRC citizens, is an international hub with large airport (and direct flights to Hubei) and MICE industry. 3.3mil people squeeze into packed trains everyday to get to work/school. It only stopped direct flights to Hubei in end Jan, after people from Hubei already started flying back from CNY celebrations. If the virus was uncontrollably contagious, Singapore would be a disaster zone; and for awhile it had the 2nd highest no. of cases after China. However, if you come here, you'd be surprised to see that life is pretty much going on as per normal - people are still taking the train to work, and maybe only 10% are wearing masks; and the number of cases being discharged from hospital has started to outpace new cases. Key measures so far: - Testing of suspected cases and quarantines for suspected patients - Quarantines for people returning from Hubei and now South Korea - Education on hygiene and encouraging people who are sick not to come to work or telecommute. - Daily cleaning of public areas/utilities like trains - Contact tracing (this one is probably the hardest for other countries to implement) This virus is going to linger for months at least, or even stay with us for a very long time, but I'm cautiously optimistic this is manageable. In terms of actual no. of cases and fatalities in Singapore in 2020, dengue fever (a yearly issue here since forever) has by far a lot more cases and arguably a bigger public health threat. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-as-litmus-test-for-coronavirus-containment
