[aslyfox]

Somewhere in the world there is a modern-day Aesop, writing a fable...

or a modern-day Robert Burns

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

[ The best laid schemes (plans) of mice and men
Go oft astray (oft go awry)
And leave us nothing but grief and pain
Instead of promised joy! ]

To A Mouse

[Parallax]

A thought just came to mind: (Yes, yes, that thought was very lonely. )
Has anyone seen anything regarding the mortality rate of smokers vs non-smokers? Not those who have been diagnosed with COPD; just apparently healthy smokers.
What's killing people is the pneumonia secondary to the viral infection. Smokers are far more susceptible to pneumonia than non-smokers. It would be interesting to correlate the death rate by country relative to the percentage of smokers by country.

[Serkevan]

Well, somewhere near 40% of the people who get it will never show symptoms of it. This is skewing the data quite a bit. Only people with severe symptoms are being tested. In Italy over 99% of the people who have died had pre-existing medical conditions. In fact they have generated excellent stats related number of pre existing condition to probability of death.


In the US somewhere near 680 people die each day from mistakes made by medical professionals. (Study done last year by Johns Hopkins medical school.) These are admitted mistakes and according to the report, their stats say that the actual number may be 100,000 deaths higher. Yet, I see no alarm over that report.

Congratulations, you completely ignored the entire post. 40% of the people who get it will not develop symptoms, but will go on to infect others, and about 1% of everyone might die... assuming hospitals can care for everyone at the same time, which they cannot. You might want to look at where I posted that the vast majority of Americans over 60 have what qualify as "underlying conditions".

Jumping from whataboutism A (water) to whataboutism B (medical errors) is just sad.

[photoptimist]

Well, somewhere near 40% of the people who get it will never show symptoms of it. This is skewing the data quite a bit. Only people with severe symptoms are being tested. In Italy over 99% of the people who have died had pre-existing medical conditions. In fact they have generated excellent stats related number of pre existing condition to probability of death.

Indeed! And those asymptomatic people are causing an estimated 25% of the new cases. Feeling fine does not imply someone is not infectious. Asymptomatic people can carry the disease and spread it to others albeit at a lower risk than those who are coughing/sneezing their guts out.

A very large fraction of Americans have one of the "pre-existing medical conditions": 121 million have some form of heart disease, 100 million have hypertension, 30 million have diabetes. Then we add the 70 million with obesity and 40 million smokers/vapers which undoubtedly create a subpopulation of people with undiagnosed pre-existing conditions plus a higher likelihood of getting sicker and requiring more healthcare resources even if they never die.

In the US somewhere near 680 people die each day from mistakes made by medical professionals. (Study done last year by Johns Hopkins medical school.) These are admitted mistakes and according to the report, their stats say that the actual number may be 100,000 deaths higher. Yet, I see no alarm over that report.

Again, this is comparing a stable source of deaths to an exponentially-growing source of deaths.

Sure, the US had only 26 new COVID-19 deaths which seems negligible compared to other causes of death. However, the US death toll is doubling every 3 days (thanks to "everything is fine" and "lets not test people" policies to date). That means COVID-19 will be killing 680/day about 10 days from now. And it also means it will be killing 1360 per day about 13 days from now, etc. Not only will it double and double and double .... if it's not stopped, but the mortality rate will increase significantly (3-8X) when the hospitals reach capacity.

BTW, COVID-19 will almost surely make the medical error rate skyrocket, too. Over-worked, over-stressed, and fearful healthcare workers will have much higher medical error rates.

---

Last edited by photoptimist; 03-21-2020 at 10:16 AM. Reason: typos

[Serkevan]

A thought just came to mind: (Yes, yes, that thought was very lonely. )
Has anyone seen anything regarding the mortality rate of smokers vs non-smokers? Not those who have been diagnosed with COPD; just apparently healthy smokers.
What's killing people is the pneumonia secondary to the viral infection. Smokers are far more susceptible to pneumonia than non-smokers. It would be interesting to correlate the death rate by country relative to the percentage of smokers by country.

In both Italy and China it is significantly more severe for men; Italy has a 26% of smoker men for 17% of women, while China is a dramatic 48% to 2%. It certainly looks like a very important exacerbating cause.

[aslyfox]

A thought just came to mind: (Yes, yes, that thought was very lonely. ) . . .

should we alert the media

You Tube

You Tube

" stop the presses, we have a special edition to put out "

[Parallax]

With regard to the hoarding and shortages:
Most people don't realize that dryer sheets can be substituted for toilet paper and, as a bonus, make your butt smell like a meadow in Spring bloom.

[sbh]

A thought just came to mind: (Yes, yes, that thought was very lonely. )
Has anyone seen anything regarding the mortality rate of smokers vs non-smokers? Not those who have been diagnosed with COPD; just apparently healthy smokers.
What's killing people is the pneumonia secondary to the viral infection. Smokers are far more susceptible to pneumonia than non-smokers. It would be interesting to correlate the death rate by country relative to the percentage of smokers by country.

In Germany smokers are categorised as a higher risk group like elderly over 60 years, people with pre-conditions and people with suppressed immune system.

Indeed! And those asymptomatic people are causing an estimated 25% of the new cases. Feeling fine does not imply someone is not infectious. Asymptomatic people can carry the disease and spread it to others albeit at a lower risk than those who are coughing/sneezing their guts out.

A very large fraction of Americans have one of the "pre-existing medical conditions": 121 million have some form of heart disease, 100 million have hypertension, 30 million have diabetes. Then we add the 70 million with obesity and 40 million smokers/vapers which undoubtedly create a subpopulation of people with undiagnosed pre-existing conditions plus a higher likelihood of getting sicker and requiring more healthcare resources even if they never die.

Again, this is comparing a stable source of deaths to an exponentially-growing source of deaths.

Sure, the US had only 26 new COVID-19 deaths which seems negligible compared to other causes of death. However, the US death toll is doubling every 3 days (thanks to "everything is fine" and "lets not test people" policies to date). That means COVID-19 will be killing 680/day about 10 days from now. And it also means it will be killing 1360 per day about 13 days from now, etc. Not only will it double and double and double .... if it's not stopped, but the mortality rate will increase significantly (3-8X) when the hospitals reach capacity.

BTW, COVID-19 will almost surely make the medical error rate skyrocket, too. Over-worked, over-stressed, and fearful healthcare workers will have much higher medical error rates.

Italy today had almost 800 deaths since yesterday. Yesterday it was over 600 people who died. The day before it were over 400 wo died. It has doubled in two days.
It's very likely that there will be over 1000 people dying just in the next 24 hours. They are a country of 60 million people.

[beholder3]

Sure, the US had only 26 new COVID-19 deaths

In New York City alone the rate is already at 1 death/hour.

That is going to go up exponentially.

[bertwert]

A bit of levity is always good. Cross-posted from The Joke Thread:



BREAKING NEWS


RCMP Asks Criminals to not Commit Crimes

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have issued a press statement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "In order to prevent the spread of infection, it is vital that everyone self-isolates and maintains social distancing," states Staff Sergeant Brown, "This includes those who were planning criminal activities." Brown then iterates that contact between criminals and RCMP members can also spread the virus. "Please remain at home and keep our population safe," continues Brown, "however, if you must rob a bank, please ensure that you are wearing masks and gloves."

[ramseybuckeye]

A bit of levity is always good. Cross-posted from The Joke Thread:



BREAKING NEWS


RCMP Asks Criminals to not Commit Crimes

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have issued a press statement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "In order to prevent the spread of infection, it is vital that everyone self-isolates and maintains social distancing," states Staff Sergeant Brown, "This includes those who were planning criminal activities." Brown then iterates that contact between criminals and RCMP members can also spread the virus. "Please remain at home and keep our population safe," continues Brown, "however, if you must rob a bank, please ensure that you are wearing masks and gloves."

It's good to see a law enforcement officer with. sense of humor, even if it is only in a joke.

[BigMackCam]

With regard to the hoarding and shortages:
Most people don't realize that dryer sheets can be substituted for toilet paper and, as a bonus, make your butt smell like a meadow in Spring bloom.

Clearly, you haven't reckoned with one of my home-made curries

[photoptimist]

Clearly, you haven't reckoned with one of my home-made curries

One goes from vindaloo to wind & loo in no time! ;-)

[Unregistered User 8]

Take care, everybody, and try to find some normalty in these times of uncertainty.

Apologies for only being able to give you 1 like for this post.............................................

[Rondec]

Well, somewhere near 40% of the people who get it will never show symptoms of it. This is skewing the data quite a bit. Only people with severe symptoms are being tested. In Italy over 99% of the people who have died had pre-existing medical conditions. In fact they have generated excellent stats related number of pre existing condition to probability of death.


In the US somewhere near 680 people die each day from mistakes made by medical professionals. (Study done last year by Johns Hopkins medical school.) These are admitted mistakes and according to the report, their stats say that the actual number may be 100,000 deaths higher. Yet, I see no alarm over that report.

I think the .5 to 1 percent mortality rate does factor that in. In China the death rate for those who tested positive was 3 plus percent. In Italy, with the medical resources maxed out, it calculates out to 9 percent. And few of the people in Italy are listed as "recovered" yet.

Italy has an old population that smokes. That definitely makes things worse for them, but this is pretty bad.

I looked at that Johns Hopkins study and while it is interesting, I think it overstated the problem of medical errors significantly. They said that a medical error was any action that did not achieve its intended goal or was detrimental in any way to the patient. They then extrapolated based on that to figure out what percent of deaths were "caused" by medical errors. The reality is that some of the deaths were preventable, but often, even with the very best care, people would die anyway. These are not situations where a doctor prescribes penicillin to someone who is allergic and then they die that evening or send someone home with a myocardial infarction.

This is not to say that there are not errors and that they do not need to be dealt with, but that they are nowhere on the order of the severity of what we are seeing in New York State and Italy right now with regard to COVID 19.