I hope you are all doing fine

That segment is most likely to be wiped out besides the elderly and immunocompromised.

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Wow, thanks. Excellent, excellent article.

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The issue isn’t really the mortality rate, it’s the capability of health services to handle thousands of sick people. Yes, many many more people die of the flu but the health services already know that and build their infrastructure around it. Covid19 came out of nowhere and at time when seasonal flus were already taking up their normal capacity.

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Agreed but has no one ever done a virus scenario?..the inability of the world powers to cope with this is unbelievable?? No?

It’s not inability, it’s unwillingness. There’s plenty of money for decent healthcare capacity and disease research, but they don’t have enough lobbyists. As Hal Holbrook once said: follow the money.

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They did, but taken measures costs money… And here we are…

Thanks for contributing to the conversation in a respectful manner, @Ohmboy. This article was very engaging. However, I must also say the thinking contained within is flawed. In short, Dr. Lee argues that the UK (and by extension the US, France, Germany, and many others) are overreacting based on the data available. Essentially, he is saying that those governments are making premature, fear-based decisions that are likely to have disastrous economic implications. Those economic implications will themselves add to the death toll. However, his admonition of the UK government is also a fear-based argument. In several places he states there is really no way to know how bad the economic fall out will be but that it will be really bad. Here is one such example:

“And what about the effects on food production and global commerce, that will have unquantifiable consequences for people of all ages, perhaps especially in developing economies?”

Here he admits that the economic and other social impacts are unquantifiable. In other words, no one knows how bad it’s going to be. His basic argument is thus 'The UK government is making premature descisions based on knowing too little, so instead we should avoid the consequences about which we know very little."

On another note, from a scientific perspective this line really shocked me:

“If he’s right, the headline death rate due to this virus is likely to be ten to 20 times lower, say 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent. That puts the Covid-19 mortality rate in the range associated with infections like flu.”

If the flu death rate is 0.1%, then 0.25% is 2.5 times more, and 0.5% is 5x more. I don’t have the calculuations in front of me but those numbers are likely to both be statistically significant and have a large effect size. Saying those are “in the range” strikes me as being a bit cavalier with the numbers.

Thanks again for contributing this article to the discussion, though. Even though I disagree with it’s conclusions and underlying way of thinking, I’m glad humanity is having discussions like this out in the open. No one person is completely right. It’s going to be a true group effort for us to figure out this whole thing (and most other things).

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I will bring that doctor and put him in one of the Spanish nursing homes that have been devastated by the virus. See how the math works…

In the time before the Titanic, some Engineers warned that ships should have more life boats. It took 1514 deaths to convince the world of that (and that radio/telegraph is important to have).

Look at climate change.
Some countries put some effort in, others ignore it or outright sign-out of agreements to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a saying in safety/security/IT "When you want to convince management to look into fire safety, burn down the building across the street."

So for healthcare, I would like to think this was the wake up call many countries needed. Enterprises and competition do not handle worst case scenarios like this, it is on the governments to take precautions.

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Premature, or just preventive. I read that as, “Disastrous economic implications are better than letting the virus kill every doctor because we did not believe it could get worse, even though it’s not the apocalypse right now”. He’s just stating facts. Remember, the title of the article is “It’s still far from clear”. Not “stop complaining, it’s not that bad”. :stuck_out_tongue:

Obviously, nursing homes are the worst place to be when a virus hits. We all know people under (let’s say) 70 years old are not automagically immune to the virus. Hell, Li Wenliang was 33. Should you be worried if you’re 33, then? Well, if you “live” in an hospital, or in a place where there’s, sadly, a lot of cases (like in Italy), maybe. Otherwise? No.

I know there’s one case of a 17-year-old dead in California. Every news website jumped on the story saying “it was COVID-19”, then the doctors said “no, it’s more complicated than that” – annnd he’s not on the list of covid-19 victims anymore.

Also a 16-year-old girl from France. First covid-19 test was positive, two other tests were negative. And then she dies. Well. That’s inconclusive.

Anyway, whatever you do, stay at home. You may already have it, it might not even be dangerous for you, you might not even care, but you might contaminate other people, and even if it’s other people who don’t care, they might contaminate people with medical conditions and/or old people and/or medics and nurses etc. That’s why like, 1/3 of the world is quarantined right now.

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With all the measures that have been taken, it appears that weekly all cause death rates have dropped significantly. Yes, we are losing people to COVID-19, but we are losing far fewer people to Influenza and other causes.

Another thought provoking take on Zoonotic diseases…

Guys, I will say this with the utmost respect from the bottom of my heart. Please stop posting random opinions from random people. 99 percent of them will be wrong. And some may cost lives. There are hundreds if not thousands of people including real or self proclaimed doctors, scientists, politicians, barbers, farmers, etc giving their opinions, OPINIONS, the only guidelines we should be following, and pray they are right, are the ones from those who have the bigger perspective, the world health organisation and their respective delegations. Most governments are following their advice, and it seems to start working. Here in Spain and Italy contagions are decelerating and we are hoping that deaths will follow in the next weeks. Please keep the posts in the original guidelines of the thread name: I hope you are all doing fine.
I am doing fine, and my people, thank god. But other people are not, and many will die, A LOT.
I hope you are doing all right.

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Fine thank you and by the look from the barge window so are new ones :smiley::+1:

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Sorry man. You live in Spain, and I just saw there’s more than 7000 confirmed deaths there. I live in Canada… 66 deaths.

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My best wishes to you over there, sir. Stay safe.

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Stats.


Source: Here.

I’m not saying to not be careful or whatever. Stay the fuck at home. It’s just stats. :stuck_out_tongue:
Can be comforting for some.

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I trust the data being posted in this image except the first one… Never trust their data.

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It’s “business as usual” in China right now, as far as I know. Lockdowns are over, people aren’t working from home anymore, etc.

Also, the percentages are quite similar to other countries.