But the fatality rate wasn't the reason for measures. It was the impact on the healthcare system that required and continues to require measures. The fatality rate wasn't known and everybody who knew what he was talking about didn't talk about the fatality rate but case fatality rate. The problem in the end is no pre-existing immunity anywhere with a high reproduction rate.

But the fatality rate wasn't the reason for measures. It was the impact on the healthcare system that required and continues to require measures. — Benkei

The strain on our medical facilities wasn't caused by covid itself, but by the disproportionate measures that were taken and never reversed. Hospitals are overworked because a large portion of their personnel is "treating" patients who have flu symptoms.

The fatality rate wasn't known and everybody who knew what he was talking about didn't talk about the fatality rate but case fatality rate. — Benkei

Turns out they made wrong assumptions, then. I don't fault people for making wrong decisions when there was no information available. Information is available now, and governments should start acting upon it instead of trying save their hides by pretending they haven't made some grave mistakes.

The problem in the end is no pre-existing immunity anywhere with a high reproduction rate. — Benkei

Yet we accept this "problem" every year with the flu and other coronaviruses.

The strain on the hospital was caused by symptoms too serious to leave untreated, with a 30% mortality rate for those admitted to the hospital and very long stays compared to a 6% mortality rate for the flu when admitted to the hospital and much shorter stays and much more cases requiring treatment than the flu as well.

Yet we accept this "problem" every year with the flu and other coronaviruses. — Tzeentch

This is bullshit.

Edit: Look up "immune imprinting". Previous infections with other strains of the same virus matter.

Turns out they made wrong assumptions, then. I don't fault people for making wrong decisions when there was no information available. Information is available now, and governments should start acting upon it instead of trying save their hides by pretending they haven't made some grave mistakes. — Tzeentch

This we can talk about. Typically Dutch is no wish to punish. As an example, some hairsalons only take 1.5 m distance, others insist on ventilation, masks for personnel and clients and 1.5 m. In that last situation, barely any chance of infection arises but both are treated the same. If a client has covid, the hairdresser that cut his hair has to go into quarantine for 10 days. Instead, if you require ventilation and mask wearing and punish by locking the entire salon for 2 weeks if measures aren't taken regardless of an infection, you actually start having sensible rules and you sobe require such extreme lock downs.

The strain on the hospital was caused by symptoms too serious to leave untreated, with a 30% mortality rate for those admitted to the hospital and very long stays compared to a 6% mortality rate for the flu when admitted to the hospital and much shorter stays and much more cases requiring treatment than the flu as well. — Benkei

Where are you getting those figures from? I can't find a source newer than the sources for CFR, and it seems rather short-sighted to counter the implications of estimates of fatality being wrong by using data from the same cohort as has just been shown to contain (albeit inevitable and understandable) estimation errors. We'd need a newer, preferably similarly collated, estimate of critical care pressure to properly support such a counter argument, should such a source exist.

Obviously the case for increased pressure on critical care in general is a no-brainer, but with shutdown of 'non-emergency' services to factor in, critical care capacity is not a blank cheque for any and all lockdown strategies to be considered justified.

Where are you getting those figures from? — Isaac

I honestly don't know. My dad mentioned it today when I was talking to him. I do know it's based on Dutch figures with respect to the first wave. It's also expected the fatality rate in hospital admitted case will be lower this time around but it won't near the 6%.

I agree that an important factor missing from considerations is the knock on effects of measures. It's buried somewhere in this thread but I raised it before: just the deaths resulting from the poverty might outweigh some choices being made. There are definitely models available for this but they're not used. Same for deaths due to standard care being delayed. There's a reason policy is aimed at a certain length for the waiting list. But that data isn't used.

Edit: Also, it's not CFR, if that causes the confusion. It's a subset of cases.

Interesting to see that now Sweden isn't taking a hit anymore as before.




In fact, the numbers of new infections in Sweden is quite the same as other Nordic countries and Estonia without any huge spikes upward:


Not only has the lethality of the pandemic obviously decreased, but now interestingly countries are on different path.

The reason that Sweden opted for a more lax policy is of course Anders Tegnell, who recommendations the leftist administration has followed. Yet even now herd immunity as an policy option is refuted even by Tegnell himself: "people getting infected on purpose is of course not [in] accordance with any public health policy. We tried to slow down the spread of the virus as much as anybody else in any other country. And we managed to slow it down just as much as most other countries. It took slightly longer than other countries. On the other hand, we don't have the resurgence of the disease that those countries have. - In the end, we will see how much difference it will make to have a strategy that's more sustainable that you can keep in place for a long time instead of the strategy that means that you lockdown, open and lockdown over and over again."

I'm hoping Italy isn't as bad as the numbers indicate.

Jesse!

Europe looks worrisome

This is the graph for France.

Per CNN, the number of elderly europeans infected is rising.

I now wish to make a highly predictable remark. :-)

You know how everyone is saying we should have seen the virus coming, because it was obvious that it eventually would? You know they say we shouldn't have just blindly wandered along blissfully assuming a pandemic could never happen? You know how they say we should have taken decisive action before the crisis, instead of bumbling in to it and having to figure things out on the run?

I think you should write to Reagan and tell him this arms race has to stop!

A certain amount of people owe a certain amount of other people an apology. — Tzeentch

An amount of apology to an amount of other people. I am very happy to admit that fewer people are dying than I feared. Long may I continue to be wrong about such things in the same direction.

But can we have a continued lockdown anyway, please? It is so restful without the endless traffic all around and above. I had forgotten birdsong.

The strain on our medical facilities wasn't caused by covid itself, but by the disproportionate measures that were taken and never reversed. Hospitals are overworked because a large portion of their personnel is "treating" patients who have flu symptoms. — Tzeentch

No. There's a 60% mortality rate for any patients who end up on a ventilator for covid related lung damage.

It's bad.

No. There's a 60% mortality rate for any patients who end up on a ventilator for covid related lung damage.

It's bad. — frank

According to the recently collated experience at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

[for] COVID-19 patients on ventilators in existing ICUs with experienced intensive care teams ... the mortality rate "is in the mid-to-high 20% range...

That's only a bit higher than the death rate for patients placed on ventilators with severe lung infections unrelated to the coronavirus.

As bad as it is is bad enough, there's no advantage in pushing a narrative, otherwise we miss dealing with the real problems.

Not all ventilated covid people have lung damage.

Put your spectacles on, Isaac.

Not all ventilated covid people have lung damage.

Put your spectacles on, Isaaac. — frank

Well if your figures only include a subset of all ventilated patients then the study you're extracting them from must be extreme indeed because prior to the Vanderbilt study the figures we were working with were around 65-80% of all ventilated patients.

Either your subset is not far off the full set or your study massively overestimated deaths compared to contemporary studies.

I think it was in jama, but with all your time in the ICU, I'm sure that number doesnt surprise you. :roll:

State checkpoints, stay at home orders, closed businesses aren’t a sign of peace and quiet, to me. We’ve reached peak statism. Despite our educated populations, who no doubt know by now what one has to do to protect himself, the nanny-state forces new restrictions. Police checkpoints on roads leaving Melbourne; shuddered businesses with a new lockdown in Ireland; curfew in Madrid. They have taken power and refuse to relinquish it.

I think it was in jama, but with all your time in the ICU, I'm sure that number doesnt surprise you. — frank

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765184

This one perhaps? There were serious methodological flaws (still struggling patients were not recorded, only survival vs death).

Personally, I'd hope anyone actually working in an ICU would be far too busy to analyse a range of papers and compare methodologies, range and applicability. If I wanted an overview I'd turn to a statistician or epidemiologist, not a random frontline worker.

As always, it's a joy to chat with you.

for] COVID-19 patients on ventilators in existing ICUs with experienced intensive care teams ... the mortality rate "is in the mid-to-high 20% range...

Wait, what timeframe did this study cover? I'm in contact with people all over the country and nobody is getting results like that.

Wait, what timeframe did this study cover? I'm in contact with people all over the country and nobody is getting results like that. — frank

It doesn't say, but at Emory University in Atlanta they got a mortality rate among 165 COVID-19 patients placed on a ventilator of just under 30%, so it's not an oddity. Nor is it unexpected, as care treatment regimes stabilise (as well as some reduction in most vulnerable prior comorbidities). I'm not sure what effect you're thinking of which would be effected by timescale (as opposed to just sample size), perhaps you could elaborate?

Yes. We were intubating anybody who needed more than 6 L/m of O2 when this all began. We reversed course around June? July? We dont intubate anybody who isnt about to crash at this point. So any study that includes those early intubations is going to show a low mortality rate.

Right, I get what you mean by 'timeframe' now. No, none of these studies are from after July, but then I very much doubt the 60% figure is from after July either, we don't seem to be able to gather good data that quickly so if you've some reason to believe earlier practices gave an artificially low mortality, you'd have to explain the much higher mortalities of studies which preceded them by only a month or so.

None of the analysis I've read has mentioned an effect of changing the threshold for intubation, but if there were one, what could explain the much higher figures of early studies?

The point here, before we get sidetracked, is that if we're going to maximise our chances of preventing the next million deaths resulting from this thing, what's required is careful, dispassionate analysis of what's actually happening, and considered long-term responses, not reliance on poor quality or out-of-date data and knee-jerk, populist reactions just because they happens to fit this Hollywood disaster movie narrative everyone seems to be desperate for.

No, none of these studies are from after July, — Isaac

Then they're useless.

you'd have to explain the much higher mortalities of studies which preceded them by only a month or so. — Isaac

Now that I've worked with people who were in NY and got the whole holy fuck story, yes, I could tell you why the mortality rate was awful.

Yet notice that the number of deaths hasn't gone up in similar fashion. For the health sector covid-19 starts to be an old "known friend".

Notice that there aren't many news articles reporting shortages in critical equipment starting with masks. The industry has been able to respond in half a year.

Yet notice that the number of deaths hasn't gone up in similar fashion. — ssu

I think we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to speak to that.

For the health sector covid-19 starts to be an old known friend. — ssu

This is true. We know it fairly well now. Still, when it decides to kill, it kills. There's nothing we can do about it.

The industry has been able to respond in half a year. — ssu

Which is pretty amazing. Part of the reason shortages were a problem was that supply lines stopped during the lockdown. IOW, our ability to respond to it depends on limiting lockdown.

And thanks for being a nice, normal human being.

Whew!

This is an informative channel: