Is social distancing really the answer?

9 comments

• gSteph

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  5 years ago

  And the alternative is???
  
  You need to procreate now?
• whodey

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  5 years ago

  The point is to get past the initial rush of cases without overloading the health care system to the point that millions die as a result. While we can't keep up social distancing forever - we don't need to. At most we need to keep it up long enough to build a large percentage of people who have recovered from the disease and built a herd immunity so it can't spread so quickly. That would put it more on par with the flu, still deadly but with a much lower number being infected/hospitalized/dying at a time.
• JamesSD

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  5 years ago

  I imagine in May or June we will have relaxed some restrictions. Mask culture may be around for a while and grocery store sneeze guards seem like something that should be permanent. Non essential businesses likely will be allowed to reopen, cafes and restaurants allowed to have a small number of done in customers.
• RandomMember

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  5 years ago

  @Whodey: "...we need to keep it up long enough to build a large percentage of people who have recovered from the disease and built a herd immunity..."
  
  ________________
  Makes sense, and if we did randomized testing we could get an approximation of how many people have recovered with immunity. After three months, I don't know why we still lag behind other countries in per capita testing?
• Icey

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  5 years ago

  Social distancing doesn't work if everything is open. Its necessary right now but a treatment or vaccine are the only viable solutions.
• skibum609

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  5 years ago

  I would just like to point out that the predicted number of deaths from this through the end of August, has in the last 8 days gone from 240,000 t0 80,000 to 60,000 and is headed lower. The last time this feeble formerly strong land had 60,000 deaths from any disease was way the fuck back in 2017/2018. Can't use the flu to make everyone poor and enslaved by the Government, so we don't notice that for those 60,000 dead it was "oh well" and for less this time it was national suicide. The ytraitorous rats called democrats making this a racial issue when obesity seems to be the culprit is a fucking disgrcae, but very progressive. Theword racism is nothing more than a signal to stop listening and start daydreaming; same as any article in the mainstream news citing an "expert".
• NinaBambina

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  5 years ago

  ^Shut the fuck up.
• theDirkDiggler

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  5 years ago

  The only reason that the death count projection has lowered was because faulty assumptions were made. They were based on increased infection rates from lack of social distancing or less compliance of them. They were bases on New York and New Jersey numbers getting significantly worse as well as everywhere else. Turns out that New York may have peaked and New Jersey isn't far behind.
  
  Also, it is also likely that none of the other "hot spots" like New Orleans, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Houston, LA, Atlanta, etc. are going to get anywhere near as bad as New York City. That is they may have stopped the spread in time. New York state and New Jersey alone have almost half of all cases and over half of all deaths right now. If those two are removed from the equation, the total deaths right now are automatically going to drop to less than half. So if you multiply the final CONFIRMED death counts in New York and New Jersey by about 3, that might give you a decent estimate of the total CONFIRMED deaths from Covid-19, So if New York and New Jersey are at or just below their peak their final number of cases might finish at 400-500k, a little over twice what they have now. The question is when all the other states reach their peak. Some are saying that Washington and California have already reached their peak or are close to it. There are still others that are much better shape and started socially distancing early enough to avoid the worse effects like Oregon, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia. There are also many smaller states that may be in similar shape. Even if those states peak much later, as in weeks, their total case count (as a percentage of their population) should still end up significantly lower than many others.
  
  So assuming that the total cases of the rest of the states ends up being 500-700k you'll end up with 900k to 1,200,000 cases. Taking the lower estimate and giving a final CFR (case fatality rate) of 7% and you get 63,000 CONFIRMED deaths. Now why is the CFR 7% and not the 3.5% that it is now? Because the overwhelming majority of cases are still active. Even if not a single new case was added (the very best case scenario) to the current total, there would over 400k cases that need to be worked out. Many of them will die. In fact 10,000 or more of them could be on a ventilator right now. The survival of patients on vents with Covid-19 is under 50%. I've heard less than 10% in some cases. But even assuming that half of them make it, that's another 5k deaths guaranteed. There are scores of thousands that will likely progress to needing ICU and many of them will progress to needing ventilation. So just from the cases we have right now, 20k to 30k or more could die easily tripling the death rate. But just assuming a doubling of the death rate gives at the lower estimate of final cases gives a death count of 63,000 CONFIRMED deaths.
  
  Why do i keep on emphasizing CONFIRMED deaths? Because as many as half of all Covid-19 deaths are not being reported or confirmed as Covid-19. New York City is reporting around 200-215 deaths at home EVERYDAY. This is compared to 20-25 before their crisis. Now not all of these deaths are from Covid-19. Many of them could be heart attacks or cancer or stroke or accidents or any highly morbid event that quickly escalated because they were unable or unwilling to go to a hospital. That is also going to result in scores of thousands of deaths in the country that could have been avoided. But still the vast majority of deaths in the home are likely from Covid-19. That's just the home. That doesn't include nursing homes and even hospitals where tests aren't available. And tests are still unavailable as they are mostly being used on the living and able and younger right now. The vast majority of them being "wasted" on people that don't have Covid-19, so there are less and less available to use on SUSPECTED Covid-19 deaths. And coroners can't state cause of death based on clinical diagnoses and suspicions, so they code them on the KNOWN morbidities that they were exhibiting like pneumonia or "flu-like illness" or heart failure.
  
  Long story short, no way the number of TRUE Covid-19 deaths ends up being less than 100k and that doesn't include all the COLLATERAL deaths from people that didn't get to a hospital in time for other conditions. Also assumptions that treatment options will improve and become available very soon are likely adding to the lower projections...
• Salty.Nutz

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  5 years ago

  We are damned if we practice social distancing and damed if we dont. During the last financial crisis 08 or so, a family member committed suicide because he was broke, my father also fell into a depression, and i asked him to at least say good bye if he ever decided to do anything. no polititian wants blood on their hands, but IMO they have done their jobs by informing us that the virus is deadlly. i for one have the right to refuse medical treatment if they want to save me. and the bottom line is if youre afraid of getting the virus you as a citizen can isolate in your home till this is over.