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When skiing returns

icecoast1

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You are calculating 150,000 dead Americans assuming we lock down society and the economy, as Italy has (belatedly) done. But it would presumably be much more than that if we decided the economy is more important than Grandma. Also I fear that your projection of 30,000 fatalities in Italy will be on the low side, they have already surpassed 8,000 and have been averaging about 700 per day for the last few days. At that rate they will have surpassed 30,000 in about a month. This article has a sobering graph of how the number of cases is the US is accelerating faster than in Italy: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/20/21179040/coronavirus-us-italy-not-overreacting

Nobody is saying the economy is more important than Grandma. Selectively opening parts of the country to certain people is not telling Grandma to drop dead
 

BenedictGomez

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This article has a sobering graph of how the number of cases is the US is accelerating faster than in Italy

Vox is either intentionally trying to scare people, or whoever made that graph is a flipping idiot.

Knowing Vox, my money is on the former.
 

cdskier

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I found a lot of comfort by looking at the link below. Particularly the fact that the death rate for those with no pre-existing conditions is only 0.9.

Yea...sure is comforting to know that only 1 out of every 100 people I know that have no pre-existing conditions would die if they get COVID-19.

Also a somewhat interesting article about research into the impact of a recession on death rates (as opposed to numbers you used that were thrown out by a movie)...
https://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/July/Unemployment-Study/
 

p_levert

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This is a mental game on my part, just the product of five minutes of googling and some shaky associations by me.

If Italy has a total pop of 60 million and current corona deaths are ~7500, and they are approaching a point where deaths will lessen each day, and projected 2020 Italy corona deaths are 30,000 (wild guess), that equals 0.05% of the population.

If US has a total pop of 330 million and we have as bad a time as Italy and 0.05% percent of our population dies of corona in 2020, that would equal 150,000 dead people.

Compare the 150,000 figure to leading causes of death in USA in 2017:
Heart disease: 647,457
Cancer: 599,108
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
Diabetes: 83,564
Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173
Roadway deaths: 40,231

Draw your own conclusions about the economic damage from panic and over-reaction vs. the actual health damage of this crisis. I know this is way over simplified. Shoot me down if you care to.

As pointed out by someone else, Italy did take preventive measures, so the toll would be higher than 300K.

When the hospitals are in better shape (enough gear to welcome new patients), and we have testing for CV-19, then we consider loosening things up.

How about this, we accept 300K CV-19 deaths and reduce the speed limit to 55 to compensate? Or we fully lock down everyone over 70 (ie they can't leave the house and all food is delivered). We could do that too. But these kinds of solutions tend to be impossible politically, at least in this country. China is different.
 

nhskier1969

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Yea...sure is comforting to know that only 1 out of every 100 people I know that have no pre-existing conditions would die if they get COVID-19.

Also a somewhat interesting article about research into the impact of a recession on death rates (as opposed to numbers you used that were thrown out by a movie)...
https://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/July/Unemployment-Study/

1 out of 100 people don't die.
break down the stats

1 out of 100 people will catch it. Out of the 1 out of 100, 80% will have light to no systems at all. 15% have moderate symptoms have moderate sysmptoms and may need to be hospitalized. 5% are severe, and need ventilators. United states is averaging a 1.3% mortality rate. It's higher in Washington because it went thru a lot of Nursing homes.
 

p_levert

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Maybe re-read my comment. I didn't say 1 out of 100 people will die. I said 1 out of every 100 people that GET it will die.

Not quite correct, since we've only been testing people with symptons. So you should say 1 out of 100 people that get it *and* are symptomatic will die.
 

cdskier

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Not quite correct, since we've only been testing people with symptons. So you should say 1 out of 100 people that get it *and* are symptomatic will die.

Well I was responding specifically to someone that pointed to data showing the death rate was "only" .9 among people with no pre-existing conditions and the fact that they said that number was "comforting" to them. So my response of course is going to respond to the number they cited in the link to the data they mentioned.

You're absolutely right that it "could" be lower. It also "could" be higher if we overload the healthcare system by "opening things up" too quickly as some people on this forum seem to be in favor of doing. The US has one of the lowest death rates at the moment compared to many other countries. I'd prefer to see it stay that way until we better understand things and are better prepared to deal with it.
 

Former Sunday Rivah Rat

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Yea...sure is comforting to know that only 1 out of every 100 people I know that have no pre-existing conditions would die if they get COVID-19.

Also a somewhat interesting article about research into the impact of a recession on death rates (as opposed to numbers you used that were thrown out by a movie)...
https://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/July/Unemployment-Study/

congrats cdskier for finding the 1 article that contradicts numerous studies showing higher unemployment causing an increased death rate :

https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/ri...r-death-rates-new-study-yale-researcher-shows

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448606/

https://www.genre.com/knowledge/blo...-lead-to-an-increasing-mortality-rate-en.html

https://www.livescience.com/13578-unemployment-health-mortality.html
 

deadheadskier

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Regardless of the stats, the real concern I have is people dying because we don't have the equipment to save them like we normally would.

I started my day with a very sobering conversation with the Director of Nursing of a hospital in VT. If the rate of infection in NYC hits VT, within 3 weeks the hospital will have to switch to a policy of no ventilators for patients over age 60. These heroes are very well used to DNR situations and see sad endings of life every day, but it's pretty much unprecedented they have to make the DNR choice for their patients and loved ones because they lack the resources to treat.

That's not media fear mongering. It's legitimate fear of the providers on the front lines. Let's hope it doesn't get that bad.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

icecoast1

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Is the rate of infection in a highly populated, highly dense city likely to occur in a highly rural state?
 

deadheadskier

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Is the rate of infection in a highly populated, highly dense city likely to occur in a highly rural state?
If VT didn't take the extreme measures they have maybe. I mean just look at what happened in Boston because of one small conference for Biogen. VT extended school cancellation for the year today as a precaution. The reality is that maybe 5 of the 15 hospitals in the state have the ICU capability of treating a serious Covid-19 patient. Outside of UVM Med Center the capacity of the others is maybe 2-5 patients each for those 4. UVM capacity might be 30 patients. It's not just a lack of Vents, it's a lack of negative pressure isolation rooms. I'd be surprised if the latter exceeded 50 patient rooms for the entire state. That's not a lot to serve a population of 600k people.

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Not Sure

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Regardless of the stats, the real concern I have is people dying because we don't have the equipment to save them like we normally would.

I started my day with a very sobering conversation with the Director of Nursing of a hospital in VT. If the rate of infection in NYC hits VT, within 3 weeks the hospital will have to switch to a policy of no ventilators for patients over age 60. These heroes are very well used to DNR situations and see sad endings of life every day, but it's pretty much unprecedented they have to make the DNR choice for their patients and loved ones because they lack the resources to treat.

That's not media fear mongering. It's legitimate fear of the providers on the front lines. Let's hope it doesn't get that bad.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using AlpineZone mobile app

With elective surgeries on hold will this make a viable dent in the deficit?

https://poststar.com/news/local/loc...cle_fe2c16f5-9199-5b4a-ae1b-5c58e9bb4b33.html
 

flakeydog

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of course when a few thousand from points south flee to the perceived safety and tranquility of points north, that will add to the burden. Capacity that was not necessarily planned for. Vermont may be able to handle some of this but the Adirondacks are a different story. Lots of people flocking up there, buying out the food supply and hunkering down in their 2nd homes. All fine until they need legit medical care, then the shit really hits the fan. Beautiful country but remote in every sense of the word.
 

BenedictGomez

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I started my day with a very sobering conversation with the Director of Nursing of a hospital in VT. If the rate of infection in NYC hits VT, within 3 weeks the hospital will have to switch to a policy of no ventilators for patients over age 60. These heroes are very well used to DNR situations and see sad endings of life every day, but it's pretty much unprecedented they have to make the DNR choice for their patients and loved ones because they lack the resources to treat.

That's not media fear mongering. It's legitimate fear of the providers on the front lines. Let's hope it doesn't get that bad.

If. And it wont.

Vermont has a strong natural defense against massive, large scale numerical, communicable pandemic disease; it's called geography.
 

deadheadskier

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With elective surgeries on hold will this make a viable dent in the deficit?

https://poststar.com/news/local/loc...cle_fe2c16f5-9199-5b4a-ae1b-5c58e9bb4b33.html
It will help some for sure. A lot of my week has actually been reaching out to Anasthasia docs to let them know that the FDA has an emergency order in place that allows for the use of Anesthesia machines for off label use as ICU ventilators.

It's not ideal. Anesthesia machines are far more advanced to run than an ICU ventilator. The skill requirement to run a ventilator is a 2 year associate degreed Respiratory Therapist making $40-65k a year. Anesthesia machines require at least a CRNA making $120k+ if not a true Anesthesiologist in the $400k range.

The additional capacity is pretty minimal though. Annual sales in the US market for Anesthesia machines is roughly 6k units. Average lifespan of that equipment is about 12 years. Some hospitals and surgery centers push that limit out. So call it 100k certified Anesthesia machines in the country would be my guess. So when you see one state such as NY begging for 30k ventilators, you can see that pushing a portion of the 100k Anesthesia machines in the US in place as an ICU vent substitute is somewhat of a drop in the bucket.

Hospitals are for sure actively converting ORs to ICU isolation beds with Anesthesia machines as vents to increase critical care capacity.

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cdskier

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I guess you didn't actually read the details of the research I posted. If you did, you'd see that while yes, unemployment itself causes an increase in the mortality rate among the unemployed, it is also offset by a benefit to ALL groups of reduced risk factors during a slower economy.

Also, here's a second article since you seem to think there's only 1:
https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290

I'm not saying I'm advocating a recession. I'm just saying it isn't necessarily anywhere near as bad as some of you want us to believe it would be. With COVID-19 we have actual REAL deaths occurring TODAY. With a recession we "may" have deaths based on some hypothetical scenarios. We can't just "open things up" because we're worried about the economic impact. And I'd love to hear some real solutions on how we would logistically implement a "isolate only high risk factor people" scenario. It really isn't anywhere near as simple as people pretend it is. There's far too much integration and potential "touch points" between different risk factor groups at least in major metro areas. More isolated rural areas could potentially find it easier to have more flexibility (assuming you can keep the higher-risk metro area people away somehow).

Maybe when you lose someone close to you from this you'll understand (especially when they are young and had a family). I take little comfort in statistics right now. Yes, emotion is playing a role in my responses here. Don't care... My view is largely unchanged from what it was previously. The only difference is I'm being more vocal about it now.

Someone else commented earlier (either in this thread or another one today) something along the lines of "you can think the media is over-hyping things and also think this needs to be taken seriously". I agree with that statement and line of thinking. I still think there are many people that don't take this seriously enough. I also think the media is nuts. The two are not mutually exclusive.
 
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