The CDC was woefully ill prepared for this pandemic beginning with their faulty tests. I am impressed with our effort from that point. Our response to date has far exceeded that of our western counterparts who have seen mass infections. We've located/acquired sufficient vents to date especially in the hardest hit places like New York. We've developed accurate 15 minute tests and began mass production of the same in a matter of weeks. Really remarkable stuff when you look at most of Europe. I'm proud of our country and it's people. Looks like we have flattened the curve and have likely reduced the number of total deaths under even the most optimistic projections. For the first time in over a month I'm optimistic today. USA!!
Some positive news on the treatment front
- Thread starter lawpoke87
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We could have (should have) been much more prepared. Were we somewhat resilient? Sure, but I would credit that less to the people at the top and more to the various smaller governments (state / local) around the country that dealt with the contagion after it reached our borders.
In my mind, this kind of compares historically to the Soviets reaction to Operation Barbarossa... For weeks, troops are massing at your border, tensions are rising, yet our country is slow to prepare due to disbelief and disinformation from the federal authorities and their news agents. Sure, they were extremely resilient after the first people started dying.... but it could have been a much more favorable outcome if they had better prepared themselves.
+1. The fed gov't slow played this to protect their market interests and in turn it's probably 3X worse than it needed to be. If you knew this was coming and what the appropriate response was in January and you waited until the 1st week of March to really decide to do anything? That's pure negligence and most of the lawyers on this board could probably make that stand up.
Stitt has been a feckless moron in OK. Thankfully GT Bynum, David Holt, and the mayors of some of the larger cities and suburbs really listened to the experts and were more aggressive in addressing it. I think the Director of THD has been really phenomenal with his info and expertise during this.
Let's see how much money Stitt gets to filter to his buddies through all of this while the state may end up having to take over Tulsa Public Schools because there won't be any recovery with simple cuts to support staff to get TPS anywhere close to the level of funding they need.
What's our baseline for judging our readiness and response? Italy, Spain, France, UK, Germany? You're coming up with some subjective standard rather than evaluating how we're doing compared to the rest of the West. Which is the measuring stick here. There is still a lot to play out but as of now the results of our response (Feds, State, local) have been beyond expectations.
I don't care about how we compare. I care about how much damage was done to our country based on our unpreparedness. So what if other countries didn't do well? We clearly could have done better. Not only that, but some countries (Japan / South Korea) showed us the way to successfully combat the outbreak and we didn't follow suit.
It's the same argument I have with people on the board about our basketball team... so what if we won our conference, if we weren't going to dance? Greatness isn't measured by how well you do among your peers, it's measured by how well you do historically.
Trump's whole slogan has revolved around "Great". Make America Great Again. Keep America Great. Great countries stand head and shoulders above others. We didn't do that in this instance because we were under prepared and essentially lied to by our federal government about our level of preparedness. He should change his slogan to "Keep America Better Than Average". I bet Frank Haith would buy one of those hats. Maybe they could sell bumper stickers about how, "My kid is a B+ student at ____ elementary"
South Korea and Japan are poor examples due to culture and society. You know this so please stop with this nonsense. Compare us to similar countries and cultures. As I said above, it's still early but to date we have risen to the challenge. Fifteen minute test kits are being mass produced after the original disaster with the CDC kits. It appears we have adequate life saving vents and they have been properly distributed. (See the vent crisis in the UK, Italy, Spain, etc... what being ill-prepared really looks like) Our death toll looks substantially lower than even the most optimistic projections of a week ago and significantly better than the 1 to 2 million we were original warned. Pretty damn good results thus far. Now lets see this thing through.
Trump has been engaging in his own bit of revisionism the last few weeks but this seems rather revisionist too. The WHO was still downplaying this in mid-January and didn’t come out and say that this was passed human to human until the end of January. Virtually no one anywhere wanted significant actions in January and Trump's decision to restrict travel at the beginning of February was widely seen as an overreaction and perhaps even "racist." If you narrow it down to the last couple weeks in february I think you have a point, but even still there is little evidence to suggest that we're worse off than our peer countries.
You seem like an Admiral sitting on the Hills above Pearl Harbor watching battleship row in flames and quipping, "we really rose to the challenge. Pretty damn good results so far"
By the way... Gettysburg - 3K dead. Pearl Harbor - 2.3K dead. D-Day 4K dead. 9/11 - 3K dead.
We're approaching / passing the number of deaths for entire US military campaigns. And, no they haven't all been the elderly or the sickly. I would hardly call that any kind of success. The entire Iraq war only saw 4,500 US military deaths. Afghanistan only saw 2,500. We've passed that in NYC alone. I wouldn't be surprised if, before this is all over the death toll surpasses that of all US personnel (combatant + noncombatant) deaths in Vietnam at 55K. That's nothing to brag about.
We don't do this with other illnesses so I don't see why this is a useful comparison here
Original projections were 1 to 2M
Projections a week ago were 100k to 200k
Deaths from the common flu during the 2017-2018 season were 80k
A final death toll from the deadliest pandemic to strike in our lifetime of less than died of the common flu two years ago given the dire predictions from our experts isn't a reason to brag....it's a reason to rejoice.
Firstly, that's an upper estimate of flu deaths according to the CDC median estimate is at 61K. Secondly, we've been combating the flu for 100+ years and infects 10's of millions of people annual compared to this virus which hasn't even infected a million domestically, to our knowledge. It's infected 1/45th the amount of people, but killed 1/6th the amount that flu has. If those numbers hold as people eventually come out of their quarantined homes, then we're still looking at hundreds of thousands if not millions dead.
Moreover, this was more preventable than the ever mutating flu, in that it hadn't touched our shores yet, and it wasn't being passed around and mutating from person to person seasonally. We also had a head start on identification and testing of this strain. There are reasons that the US never suffered anything like this with Ebola, Zika, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, etc... because we weren't constantly being told we were prepared for them when we weren't.
I wouldn't rejoice about any of this. I would be asking, how can we prepare so this never happens again? (Much like we were after Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc...)
No matter how we did with this you always set there with your 20/20 hindsight vision and play monday morning quarterback making an extreme number of complaints. You are not a pragmatist or a 'realist', you are a pessimist.
It is easy to focus on what went wrong if you want to approach it that way. It's easy to spend a butt load of money that way too. I think Lawpoke is being a little too early with his abounding optimism at this point. But I'd rather hear him than you constantly whining about everything. Yes their are valid complaints to be made. You go way beyond that. You also put impossible demands on the system. I bet you would have been complaining a few days after Normandy if you were alive then. Sometimes you seem like an old Jewish woman.
I would figure that the who, cdc and hospitals develope plans for different emergencies.
It's far more contagious than the flu and far more deadly. If it infects less it's due to the measures we have taken. That's a positive. When your first estimate is 1 to 2M deaths and even your estimate as of a few days ago is 100k to 200k deaths then a total below 80k is absolutely a reason to rejoice as we've exceeded even the most optimistic scenario.
I do agree that we must take this experience and learn and prepare for the next pandemic. SARS really helped South Korea this time around. We need to be better prepared for the next virus. I think we will.
Gmoney is correct. I probably am being a bit too optimistic. It's just been awhile since I had anything positive to read regarding this virus. We will know a lot more in two weeks Fingers crossed.
Lol. I wouldn't disagree that I can be pessimistic.... anxiety does get the best of me at times. But I am pessimistic in hopes that when the median outcomes occur, that I can savor them. It tends to make me a bit happier with less.
More than my outlook though, I'm think I'm a dreamer / a idealist. I want the entities I support to be extraordinary. I want more than just average. I want people to strive for greatness. If I point out things that a person, or a team, or a corporation, or our society can fix... it's not because I don't support them... it's because I care abundantly and I want them to succeed. I would compare myself to Phil Jackson. He coached exceptional players, but he also found ways to make them achieve more than they could without him.
I look at something slightly above average and ask myself, how could this be historic? Sometimes that means focusing on the details.
Resors, a popular chain here has now went to a wear a mask or don't come in for customers AND employees.
This will help break the feeling one has at first of looking stupid. 100 percent compliance or near that would shut the virus down. As a seasoned citizen I think it is worth getting up early for our hour from 7am to 8am. Of course, I still look stupid but everyone does.
This will help break the feeling one has at first of looking stupid. 100 percent compliance or near that would shut the virus down. As a seasoned citizen I think it is worth getting up early for our hour from 7am to 8am. Of course, I still look stupid but everyone does.
Latest fatality projections came out this am and are now down to 60k in the US. The U.K. sits at 66k btw. Our projection is now significantly better than all of the EU except for Germany and almost 100k less then the median projection of ten days ago. Would be a fantastic accomplishment for the US if these numbers hold true.
And there is some evidence per Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx that the projected number may now be lower because of physical distancing efforts. I still think we can do better at our physical distancing. Entirely way too many people out and about trying to maintain as much normalcy as they can.
As for the flu...there is a vaccine. There are a large number of people who opt to not get the flu vaccine who get sick and die. Again, the number who die from the flu largely comes from the elderly and immunocompromised. The vaccine is as much to keep you healthy as it is to prevent spread to compromised populations not able to be vaccinated because of their conditions. Choosing not to get vaccinated for any disease is flat out irresponsible towards the rest of humanity. I don't get anti-vaxxers who literally have ZERO scientific evidence on their side in the matter. Their viewpoint is simply selfish and reckless.
Yes, especially with the population. It will still be devastating to large urban centers that are densely populated, ala NYC, LA, NOLA. Still, physical distancing needs to be the norm not just when the rate of infection plateaus...it needs to be near zero when these recommendations are lifted otherwise it will just flare up a 2nd time.
I have been wearing a mask whenever I am going to interact with individuals. I don't care what I look like or if people think I am going too far. I have a responsibility to not only protect myself and my family, but ANYONE I might come in contact with. We all have that responsibility. I applaud Reasor's. Costco has also taken some protective measures. All of their employees were wearing gloves and it appeared they made masks optional. Plastic barriers between the checkers and the customer, no touch membership scanning. Costco was also sanitizing every cart that was put back into the line for a customer to use (I also bring my own wipe).
I don't know what Wal Mart has in place other than limiting the number of customers in the store. None of their checkers had masks or gloves. Stockers, some anyway, seemed to have gloves.
The quarantine decisions will be made on the local and state level (which is were they should be made). Wyoming shouldn't have the same standard and time line as say NYC. I still expect some flair ups and hot spots regardless of the measures areas keep in place. Lots of travel include international travel. The good news is we should have our protocol well established by mid summer and especially fall with lots of tests available. Holding out hope for either an effective treatment (likely) or a limited vaccine (unlikely) by late fall.
I'm gonna be pissed if the treatment is chicken soup, flat 7-up, and saltine crackers (anyone know the reference?)
Still, I wonder how effective Mucinex might be for the lung congestion? If you catch it early before it builds up and you still have the ability to cough it up, it should work. That's the whole point of Mucinex. The biggest problem I have heard is how hard and fast the congestion builds in those who experience that reaction to the viral infection. It happens almost overnight and people end up in the hospital 24 hours after they start feeling anything.
I agree places will need to assess their situation locally but the worst thing that could happen in Tulsa is for Stitt or Trump to say there is no longer a need to shelter in place while we still have a pretty active infection rate. Stitt would lift it if Broken Bow is showing no more active cases because there is such a rush to get back to "normal" being driven by economy and stock market, not the actual health and safety of the populace.
It seems odd to make fatality projection this morning when todays numbers are not complete. I understand that they are probably based on yesterdays results, but number have bounced around daily in resent periods. With 50 states, some have not reported on various days.
Morning is the least like for all reports to be in, good or bad.
I assume the data was put into their algorithm yesterday and published this am. I'm also assuming they have more data than we see. That said.....they appear to have been off by almost 300% less than two weeks ago so I take any projections with some skepticism. The good thing is every update has been positive
Morning report reflects the previous days full numbers. Projections revamped based on slowing infection rate. NYC thinks they are in the beginning of their plateau period even though they had the highest number of deaths in a single day to date.
I learned to take the daily information with a grain of salt. The reported number of new cases each day in OK started to really hit me and send my anxiety into high gear. But, when you put it into context of how many more people they were able to test, it makes sense.
I work at TCC and they've already made the decision to have only online courses through the end of the summer session (July). I know I am working remotely until at least May 1 and it's likely we will go beyond that for most of the week and maybe do one day rotation in office for my area. We'll see.
That, and now they are estimating there may be an undercount of the dead in NYC by up to 40%. The reason being they aren't counting those who die in their homes, because they aren't testing them and confirming the cause of death. Home deaths are up 400% in NYC. The baseline is your typical heart attack or stroke where nobody gets there in time. I am sure some of the surge is from people who are sick (not with COVID), but are too afraid to go out to the hospital. But certainly a good portion of those new home deaths are COVID. New York today said they are going to start counting home deaths as COVID deaths if it seems a strong possibility, and refine the numbers as tests actually get done, if they ever do. That means if someone else was in the house that tests positive, and/or the cause of death appears to be pneumonia related and there are other signs of an influenza-like illness. It won't be exact, but not counting any home deaths right now is probably even further from the right number.
Neither Trump nor Stitt will dictate what occurs at the city level. Stitt sounded pretty conservative in his comments yesterday on a time frame.
Makes zero sense to me to count a death as covid death without confirmation. We don't do this for any other type of death.
Understood, but tests are scarce and need to be reserved for the living. I think they are trying to be conservative and only count the death as COVID if it seems a strong likelihood. Rationally, it is likely to be a better estimate than just ignoring a 400% surge in home deaths as somehow unrelated to COVID.
EDIT: Also, Italy started dong this as well because they couldn't test people fast enough. Italy also found an alarmingly high rate of false negatives (around 25%) upon retests, and found a diagnosis based on clinical presentation was more reliable. Unsure if we are having the same problem with our testing giving false negatives, but there is precedent.
We're being very liberal with our coding in hospitals as well. Basically if you have covid and you die you are presumed to have died of covid. There's pluses and minuses on either side. Doubt the numbers are far off.
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Minnesota sent out a letter last week to their Doctors stating that if you have a patient die of pneumonia who may have been exposed to covid-19 it would be appropriate to list cause of death as covid-19. They will not test the body. They have no such policies regarding the flu.
Right. And if we counted flu deaths solely based on who tested positive we'd drastically undercount them every year. So while we may be undercounting covid deaths in some circumstances, we may also be overcounting them in others like you said. I'd think that eventually they'll be able to give to just give a ballpark estimate like with the flu and it may or may not align with what is reported.
Actually, they are adding individuals who died who exhibited the 3 telltale symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, shortness of breath, cough) to the total COVID-19 related deaths. It may be unfair to assume but in all of those they tested negative for flu and the pneumonia was not bacterial in nature. It was before they had enough tests. I believe it was Louisiana who updated their total infections to over 12,000 and death total to reflect individuals who were hospitalized or died with the symptoms but weren't tested.
Just seems odd we don't do this for the flu (we list the cause of death as pneumonia) even though we have the ability to test them. Hopefully it's a reflection of simply not enough tests. Suppose we will see in the coming weeks as infections decrease if the policy is to require a positive test before the determination of death. For accuracy one would certainly hope this to be the case.
I can't comment on what we do/don't do for the flu, but I do think that the main limiting factor here is testing, both in terms of time and availability. I would hope that whatever the standard is for other diseases that this eventually adheres to it as well.
I just thought I would add this thought for consideration by those who aren't sold on the idea that we need a lot of testing:
If we can get rapid, massive scale and reliable testing deployed throughout the country, it will really facilitate opening things back up. We could open up right now if we had that. You get a test that shows you are negative, and you get a license to be in public doing whatever you like for some limited timespan, say 7-10 days (or whatever Fauci/CDC says would be reasonable). You'd have to get retested often, but business owners with a healthy staff could reopen and also be secure in knowing that their customers were also healthy and recently tested.
The penalty for being out and about without a recent test would have to be severe to prevent a renewed spread, and I don't see any way around random checks by the cops. But as distasteful as all that is, it would be a way to get our economy back up and running sooner rather than later.
It would also lead to much more accurate numbers on the death toll and number of known cases, but I would just consider that an added bonus over being able to take my kids to daycare and go into my office again.
EDIT: Removed reference to China because it dawns on me that I don't actually know exactly what they are doing over there. And I wouldn't trust them anyhow if they said they had a plan and it was working.
If we can get rapid, massive scale and reliable testing deployed throughout the country, it will really facilitate opening things back up. We could open up right now if we had that. You get a test that shows you are negative, and you get a license to be in public doing whatever you like for some limited timespan, say 7-10 days (or whatever Fauci/CDC says would be reasonable). You'd have to get retested often, but business owners with a healthy staff could reopen and also be secure in knowing that their customers were also healthy and recently tested.
The penalty for being out and about without a recent test would have to be severe to prevent a renewed spread, and I don't see any way around random checks by the cops. But as distasteful as all that is, it would be a way to get our economy back up and running sooner rather than later.
It would also lead to much more accurate numbers on the death toll and number of known cases, but I would just consider that an added bonus over being able to take my kids to daycare and go into my office again.
EDIT: Removed reference to China because it dawns on me that I don't actually know exactly what they are doing over there. And I wouldn't trust them anyhow if they said they had a plan and it was working.
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I’ve thought of that but I’m not sure we have anywhere close to the ability to process 150M test per week. Not sure we could get anywhere close to that number in the next few months.
Clong...what would it take to run that many tests a week?
Clong...what would it take to run that many tests a week?
A lot... Probably not possible to do for the entire country.
Not everything would be able to get reopened unless you really could do 200 million tests every 10 days or so. But if you can muster 10 million above and beyond what is needed for medical diagnoses, (one million spread out nationwide/day) then you can at least start. You could get a broad assortment of businesses open, and try to cap one person per household at a time to maximize the economic effect of people shopping and working. If you can steadily ramp up testing from there, all the better.
It would cost a ton, but would arguably be less damaging to our economy than having everyone sit at home all at once. And I do think it is attainable if we had a concentrated effort to do it and a good economic team that could advise what blend of businesses will be most impactful to have reopen first, etc.
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