04-21-2020, 09:53 PM
A transcript of an interview with Michael Osterholm, infectious disease specialist at Minnesota, reminded my of this recent dormant thread.
Whereas there have been recent studies that suggest the IFR may be in the 0.2% range, those studies have questionable methodology. Today the NIH put forth treatment guidelines that, at least as of now, do not recommend any medications for the Covid infection.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/ni...index.html
It is probable that a vaccine is 12-18 months away at best.
Set against recent discussions here in which there are predictions that the total number of U.S. fatalities from the virus will be below 100,000, Dr. Olsterholm stated the following:
"There are 320 million people in the United States. If half of them get infected in the next 6 to 18 months, that's 160 million people. The 50% rate of infection over the course of the pandemic is at the low end of my colleagues' consensus on what we can expect to see given the infectiousness of this virus. Based on what we know from Asia, from the European Union and from the United States, about 80% of these cases will have asymptomatic, mild or moderate illness but won't need professional medical care. About 20% of infected people will seek medical care. That's 32 million people. Of those, about half will be hospitalized. That's 16 million people. Of those who are hospitalized, about half will actually require some form of critical care. That's 8 million people. About 0.5 to 1% of the total number of 160 million infected people will die. So you have the possibility of at least 800,000 deaths in the US over the next 18 months. This is the number of deaths I'm expecting."
Why is he wrong?
The entire interview is here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/...index.html
Whereas there have been recent studies that suggest the IFR may be in the 0.2% range, those studies have questionable methodology. Today the NIH put forth treatment guidelines that, at least as of now, do not recommend any medications for the Covid infection.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/ni...index.html
It is probable that a vaccine is 12-18 months away at best.
Set against recent discussions here in which there are predictions that the total number of U.S. fatalities from the virus will be below 100,000, Dr. Olsterholm stated the following:
"There are 320 million people in the United States. If half of them get infected in the next 6 to 18 months, that's 160 million people. The 50% rate of infection over the course of the pandemic is at the low end of my colleagues' consensus on what we can expect to see given the infectiousness of this virus. Based on what we know from Asia, from the European Union and from the United States, about 80% of these cases will have asymptomatic, mild or moderate illness but won't need professional medical care. About 20% of infected people will seek medical care. That's 32 million people. Of those, about half will be hospitalized. That's 16 million people. Of those who are hospitalized, about half will actually require some form of critical care. That's 8 million people. About 0.5 to 1% of the total number of 160 million infected people will die. So you have the possibility of at least 800,000 deaths in the US over the next 18 months. This is the number of deaths I'm expecting."
Why is he wrong?
The entire interview is here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/opinions/...index.html