10,000,000 - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: Emergency (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-11.html)
+--- Forum: Covid-19 (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: 10,000,000 (/thread-19927.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: Emergency (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-11.html)
+--- Forum: Covid-19 (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: 10,000,000 (/thread-19927.html)
10,000,000 - OutsiderFan - 06-22-2020
Given the pandemic is now accelerating faster than ever, we will hit the 10,000,000 global confirmed infection mark by I'm guessing Saturday. At the same time we'll also likely be at 500,000 confirmed deaths reported. So that's about a 5% CFR. Yes, the deaths are bad and sad. However, my much greater concern is not deaths as much as infection and the fact we just don't know enough about this virus to have any real sense of how it is going to impact individual and population health over the long haul. I just read today that Mexico is now experiencing a 50% (!!!!!) positive test rate. This thing is now just exploding, and we haven't even come close to even 1% of the global population. We'd need 78,000,000 positive infections to reach that, and we are just nearing 10,000,000.
There was this conventional wisdom that everyone who gets mild symptoms would develop antibodies and immunity. Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence suggesting that not only do some people not develop enough antibodies to fight the infection, but even those who do have shown evidence of antibodies decreasing over time, like 3 months. That means reinfection is likely and calls into questions efficacy of a vaccine even if one is developed. Then there is evidence that even those who never present clinical symptoms suffer lung damage that logically is going to lead to longer term health issues even when the virus is no longer detected in body. I saw one scientist say he's studied hundreds of diseases and SARS-CoV-2 is the "weirdest" one he's ever seen. I'm no disease scientist, but it sure seems believable based on what has been documented.
So with this as a backdrop, what is y'all's take on this thing from a macro perspective? We've talked about mitigation, clinical features, NPIs, economic considerations as discrete topics, but not much on a sort of global perspective of what we think about the implications of this virus for us as individuals, a country, and global species. If everyone gets infected, does life expectancy drop to I don't know, medieval times because the long-term lung damage is going to result in many more health complications for the average person who gets it? Do we have to re-prioritize health care as a top priority? Might we have a need to cut fossil fuel emissions not just for climate change purposes, but also to make the air cleaner so we can breathe easier with diminished lung capacity? These are some of the things going through my head. I'm curious what others think, because my assumption is our perspectives on this pandemic have changed quite a bit since this board was started at the end of February.
RE: 10,000,000 - BostonCard - 06-22-2020
A few quick comments:
Global confirmed infections is a fraction of the total number of patients who have been infected with the virus. Even in countries that are testing extensively, serology suggests that positives tests account for roughly 1/10th the number of total people exposed (based on serology studies in Spain and New York). The testing is probably worse in the developing world, as you surely can intuit from Mexico's 50% positivity rate. So, we are likely over 100 million people exposed to the virus worldwide, and an IFR close to .5. Still there is a long way to go until the world reaches herd immunity.
Second, antibodies are not the sina qua non of immunity. It is not yet clear whether "some people do not develop enough evidence to fight the infection". Although some patients do not develop detectable neutralizing antibodies, it is not yet clear that these patients are at risk for re-infection. The body has a lot of different ways to fight infection, including virus-fighting T cells, and memory B cells, which are capable of ramping up antibody production if the virus is detected again. Evidence of loss of antibodies is not surprising; this has been seen with other coronaviridae. While we have seen reports of patients testing positive after testing negative, I haven't seen any true reports of re-infection (documented symptomatic infection, recovery with negative PCR testing, followed by a subsequent symptomatic re-infection).
That being said, I would not be surprised if there is waning immunity, which is not that unusual for respiratory viruses (for example influenza). The upshot is that re-infection, if/when it happens, tends to result in a less severe disease. So, we might see patients infected a first time who develop severe COVID-19 pneumonia, followed some time later (maybe a year) with an infection resulting in a moderate symptomatic or disease. While there is a reasonable concern about how long the immunity of a vaccine will last, this may result in the need to re-vaccinate yearly (at least until a long-lasting vaccine is developed). While every disease is unique, I don't think SARS-CoV 2 is all that much weirder than other viruses out there. Most specifiically, it looks a lot sort of like a version in between the endemic coronaviridae (which cause cold-like symptoms) and SARS and MERS, which have a higher mortality.
BC
RE: 10,000,000 - oregontim - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 07:12 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I just read today that Mexico is now experiencing a 50% (!!!!!) positive test rate.
OF, Not that it matters, or changes your point, but you piqued my curiosity. I just did a web search and I can't find that about Mexico anywhere. The closest I come is a couple of items in April talking about a 50% increase in respiratory infections year-to-year. I would love to know more. Can you find the source for me? Thanks in advance.
RE: 10,000,000 - BostonCard - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 10:13 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(06-22-2020, 08:00 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: A post-election coup in the US is an absolutely zero probability.In politics nothing has an absolutely zero probability.
For example, Gerald Ford becoming President in August 1974 must have seemed impossible in October 1972.
Things happen.
I would not put the number at zero, but would agree it is close enough to zero that there are more pressing concerns in the USA at the moment.
I agree with you that there are no absolute zeros. That being said, I think tehre's a difference between something being unlikely because a number of unlikely possibilities would have had to happen (Nixon being engulfed in scandal, Spiro Agnew resigning, Ford being picked as VP, Nixon being impeached) and thinking of scenarios where there are built in forces in opposition. It might have seemed unlikely in 1972, but you can connect the dots (or put another way, if I could go back in time and tell someone that in two years Gerald Ford will be president, they could probably come up with a plausible scenario that makes it so).
If someone from the future came and told me that there was a coup after the election, I would honestly dumbfounded as how it could have come to pass. Maybe that's failure in my imagination, or overconfidence in American institutions, but I really have a hard time seeing it.
BC
RE: 10,000,000 - magnus - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 10:24 AM)oregontim Wrote:Perhaps OF saw this tweet(06-22-2020, 07:12 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I just read today that Mexico is now experiencing a 50% (!!!!!) positive test rate.
OF, Not that it matters, or changes your point, but you piqued my curiosity. I just did a web search and I can't find that about Mexico anywhere. The closest I come is a couple of items in April talking about a 50% increase in respiratory infections year-to-year. I would love to know more. Can you find the source for me? Thanks in advance.
[Tweet]https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1274804100484431872[/tweet]
RE: 10,000,000 - oregontim - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 07:50 AM)JustAnotherFan Wrote: with a post-election coup in the USA also being a non-zero probability, and we may all have to be forced into some really uncomfortable moral dilemmas in deciding how to respond to these developments. They're all interconnected.
Interesting times indeed.
The Covid-19 pandemic element in this dark vision is the irony that mismanaging the pandemic (the "slow the testing" comment in Tulsa last Saturday, for example; firing Richard Bright, sidelining Fauci, all of that) could deepen cascading problems this fall that could ultimately be used to rationalize messing with the elections. So I'd add in to JAF's worries the more-than-zero probabilities of a pre-election coup — elections not happening — or hacking/cheating to manipulate results.
To be clear, I'm not predicting; this is just a fear, a what-if scenario. Imaginary, I hope. Scenarios for the purpose of planning.
RE: 10,000,000 - 82 Card - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 10:13 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(06-22-2020, 08:00 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: A post-election coup in the US is an absolutely zero probability.In politics nothing has an absolutely zero probability.
For example, Gerald Ford becoming President in August 1974 must have seemed impossible in October 1972.
Things happen.
I would not put the number at zero, but would agree it is close enough to zero that there are more pressing concerns in the USA at the moment.
I ran a quick check on yesterday's data for Mexico on worldometers.org site. I came up with 58.3% positive. The numbers I used were:
Tests yesterday = (total tests yesterday) - (total tests 2 days ago) = 473,952 - 465,867 = 8,085
% positive = (confirmed cases yesterday)/(tests yesterday) = 4,717/8,085 = 0.5834
It's possible that the worldometers numbers for testing and new cases do not line up (i.e. test added in a given day to total may not be the same ones reporting results that day). What makes me think that may be the case is the fact that the results for today so far show 5,343 new cases and 5,576 tests for a positive rate of 95%. That seems unlikely. Unfortunately, worldometers doesn't show older data for testing.
RE: 10,000,000 - BostonCard - 06-22-2020
Mexico and Brazil are important for showing that there is no correlation between ideology and competence. Brazil has one of the most right wing governments in Latin America; Mexico has one of the most left-wing governments in Latin America. What they have in common is their competence (or lack thereof).
Contrast that to Uruguay.
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/06/20/how-uruguay-has-coped-with-covid-19
Uruguay borders Brazil, which is the worst hit country in the region. Uruguay has the highest share of population over 65 in the continent, so it should be particularly vulnerable. The difference between Brazil and Uruguay is not the severity of the lockdown (you can see from the article that the Uruguayan president did not impose a stringent lockdown). The difference was the speed of response and the amount of testing.
Quote:Luis Lacalle Pou, the centre-right president, was swift but not strict. On March 13th he declared an emergency and shut the borders. Like the populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico, he is at pains to shield the economy. Unlike them, he does not make light of the disease. “It was such a surprise to see a president listen to a doctor, or a mathematician, digest the advice, then communicate a message to the public free of any politics,” says Eduardo Savio, an epidemiologist who advised the government.
Leadership makes a difference.
BC
RE: 10,000,000 - terry - 06-22-2020
This thread has gone beyond the scope of this board.
RE: 10,000,000 - oregontim - 06-22-2020
Magnus, OF, thanks ... good information there. My friends on the ground there are very critical of AMLO and official response. The general feeling they give me is that the Mexican federal government is not doing what it should, not reporting deaths well, etc. That 57% of the tests are positive makes sense where the testing is suppressed — not that we would ever do that in the US (cough cough Tulsa).
(06-22-2020, 12:10 PM)magnus Wrote:(06-22-2020, 10:24 AM)oregontim Wrote:Perhaps OF saw this tweet(06-22-2020, 07:12 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I just read today that Mexico is now experiencing a 50% (!!!!!) positive test rate.
OF, Not that it matters, or changes your point, but you piqued my curiosity. I just did a web search and I can't find that about Mexico anywhere. The closest I come is a couple of items in April talking about a 50% increase in respiratory infections year-to-year. I would love to know more. Can you find the source for me? Thanks in advance.
[Tweet]https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1274804100484431872[/tweet]
RE: 10,000,000 - BostonCard - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 03:56 PM)terry Wrote: This thread has gone beyond the scope of this board.
Yeah, I deleted my post.
BC
RE: 10,000,000 - 2006alum - 06-22-2020
(06-22-2020, 03:56 PM)terry Wrote: This thread has gone beyond the scope of this board.
Time to stop, drop, and lock it.
See: Terry Rule.
RE: 10,000,000 - admin - 06-27-2020
Non-covid posts deleted.