Opening Up...

TFLYTSNBN wrote:The Chinavirus is a Flu virus. Vaccines are only partially effective at best and become totally ineffective as the virus mutates. We already have over 30 strains. We will not be able to develop a vaccine that will be effective for all of them. Herd immunity isn't going to happen either.

We need effective treatments.

It's not a flu-virus in the traditional sense, there's some notable differences. A flu-virus is primarily transmitted by children whereas this virus isn't. This virus also passes through a large percentage of the population with almost no symptoms at all.

And herd immunity will happen, at least that's what the leading experts in epidemiology and immunology says.

doug941 wrote:

Annachie wrote:No, a highly infectious virus with a 10% mortality rate affectslife expectancy more, and that is what they are risking.

Strangely, it affects the ecconomy more too.

One slight problem with your assertion. As of April 21st the death rate in the US is 5.53% of known infections, NOT 10%.

While opening the floodgates makes me nervous, NOT opening them terrifies me. Until a proven vaccines makes it onto the market, the only way to defeat COVID is to reach herd immunity and that CAN NOT gained by metaphorically hiding under your bed. Let those who want/need to be outside runs the risks and let those who want to shelter shelter.
The second reason the relax is in 6 weeks the unemployment levels have gone from 3.5% in February to nearly 18% now.
Headline in Fortune magazine April 16th:

"22 million have lost their jobs over the past month—real unemployment rate likely nearing 18%"

Being locked into our homes for another month or three WILL see unrecoverable job loses which by themselves will see other non-COVID health problems.

With proper medical attention the mortality rate for covid-19 is about 1%. It blows out to about 10% if there's no treatments.

More people infected at once the closer that mortality gets to 10%. At the moment lockdown is the best preventitive we have.

The ecconomy will recover eventually, but nothing will bring the dead back. After all, as the right tell us all the time, all lives matter.

Annachie wrote:Actually Joat, lockdown does affect mortality for this and similar viruses.

Failure to get proper medical treatment FOR THOSE THAT NEED IT increases the mortality by a factor of up to 10.
A large number of simultanious cases will cause medical facilities to be swamped, meaning not everybody gets proper care.
Lockdown slows the infection rate, potentially by a lot. Slow infection rate means lower number of simultanious cases means far higher chance of medical facilities being able to cope which means far less chance of people not getting needed medical care.

No, my statement is correct. The chance of dying from being infected is the same with or without a lockdown since you only delay or slow the infection rate with it.

As I noted (perhaps in an unclear way), this hinges on that people can be treated and that a lockdown is only a short-term solution to help the healthcare-system cope with a spike.

Regardless, using a lockdown in an effort to stop the spread is futile in the long term since as soon as you relax it you get new cases.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:The Chinavirus is a Flu virus. Vaccines are only partially effective at best and become totally ineffective as the virus mutates. We already have over 30 strains. We will not be able to develop a vaccine that will be effective for all of them. Herd immunity isn't going to happen either.

We need effective treatments.

well - there was a very interesting interview on the BBC news this am. Talking to one of the lead vaccine researchers in the UK from Imperial College. He was actually quite hopeful.

He was saying that [at present] C19 is not like flu or even worse HIV. It is not mutating much and therefore seems to be targetable.

IIRC his phrase was that 'it stays in our rifle sights'...

So that may not be the issue.

Of course, such vaccines have to be found to be safe & effective and then there is the issue of rolling it out to vast numbers.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:The Chinavirus is a Flu virus. Vaccines are only partially effective at best and become totally ineffective as the virus mutates. We already have over 30 strains. We will not be able to develop a vaccine that will be effective for all of them. Herd immunity isn't going to happen either.

We need effective treatments.

a few seconds of googling lets me see that Flu is not a conronavirus and Coronavirus is not flu

Both influenza and coronaviruses have a single strand of RNA as their genome, but that is where the genomic similarity ends. The influenza virus genome comprises 7 or 8 segments, while the coronavirus has one long strand. Influenza virus RNA is what is known as ‘negative sense RNA’. This means that its sequence is the mirror image of the correct code for proteins and a complementary strand must be made from it before production of new viruses within a host cell can proceed. In contrast, the coronavirus genome is ‘positive sense’ which means it can act as messenger RNA and code for proteins. So from a virological point of view, coronavirus is definitely not a type of flu.[/quote]

http://www.labnews.co.uk/article/2030503/coronavirus-is-it-just-a-type-of-flu
that article has lots of other interesting stuff...

here is another little snippet, relevant to the discussion above...

Therefore it is difficult to determine an accurate case fatality rate, but it seems to be between 1% and 5%.

A few points on this.
As Anna says, a slow opening will allow the health systems to properly treat all of those who become ill. Meaning that possibly only 1% die, not 10%. Having 10% die is not an economic positive.

With viruses such as this, they then tend to attenuate over time. A high mortality rate isn't a good thing for the virus either. Better that you stumble around coughing on everyone and spreading it. So less deadly strains become more common.

Herd immunity isn't a binary situation. The more people who recover from the various strains, the less spread in the future.

I do support fly in his honesty, and agree that it can become a numbers game. How many die from covid, versus suicide, versus lack of other support like elective surgery, or poverty for that matter? I'll upset a couple here by pointing out that the civilised and developed countries will have less trouble with the poverty bit, due to their welfare and health nets.

Being in an at risk situation I'm less sanguine than fly about how people like me will likely die anyway from some other cause.
I'm 71. A nasty case of leukeamia that morphed into Evans Syndrome, has gone into (at present) indefinite remission. It left me with very little natural of an immune system, a heart that is healthy except that it has burnt out nerves (heart block) so I need a four way pacemaker, and overweight due to the steroids that enabled me to survive all that. So, I fit into a number of at risk categories. However apart from that I hope to live for decades yet, and continue to contribute to society. It does mean that I do have to stay secluded at the present. Normally I winter in Europe, but not now and for some time.

It's the stupidest thing we can do right now. The decisions, based on money, will be nothing short of murder!

cthia wrote:It's the stupidest thing we can do right now. The decisions, based on money, will be nothing short of murder!

So when is it a good time to relax the restrictions?

Remember, as long as there is no effective treatment or vaccine you are only delaying the inevitable while trashing the economy for years to come - and trust me on this, a prolonged recession will in the end lead to more people dying. It's trivial to prove it mathematically using available statistics, health and life-expectancy are strongly correlated to a persons income.

Joat42 wrote:

cthia wrote:It's the stupidest thing we can do right now. The decisions, based on money, will be nothing short of murder!

So when is it a good time to relax the restrictions?

Remember, as long as there is no effective treatment or vaccine you are only delaying the inevitable while trashing the economy for years to come - and trust me on this, a prolonged recession will in the end lead to more people dying. It's trivial to prove it mathematically using available statistics, health and life-expectancy are strongly correlated to a persons income.

My home state, which I think has an infection rate of about 0.2 at the moment, is talking 3 weeks time.
NSW, which is in a worse spot but has a right wing government, is starting now.

Likely to still be restrictions on interstate travel for a while.

So a good little experiment.


Oh, there's also talk of opening the NZ/Oz border.

Annachie wrote:My home state, which I think has an infection rate of about 0.2 at the moment, is talking 3 weeks time.
NSW, which is in a worse spot but has a right wing government, is starting now.

Likely to still be restrictions on interstate travel for a while.

So a good little experiment.

Oh, there's also talk of opening the NZ/Oz border.

I think the real problem with relaxing the restrictions is that there's a certain percentage of the population that think it'll be business as usual which isn't the case - and that will certainly drive up the infection rate.

The key point is that as long as you have enough hospital beds, personnel and resources to handle the influx of new cases (on top of normal healthcare operations), restrictions should be relaxed.