Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Breccia]

I explained that the issue is something else

I'm going to assume you neant "old" not "literally 65 years of age" when countries have a wide range of life expectancies and quality of health care. I'm not ready to say it's a specific number of years that's the make-or-break point, especially without a clear control variable. I am, however, completely on board with older people in general having worse physical conditions...but not ready to put the blame entirely there. The US has a far higher-than-average deaths per capita. We're not in the top 10, but we are in the top 20. India is not, China is not, Nigeria is not...somehow. It doesn't have to be 65 spins around the sun specifically, or anti-vaxxers specifically, or the fact that we got hit early and other countries could put measures in place while they watched the US implode specifically, the USA has clearly done something wrong, and a CDC projection for the USA should not simply be factored up for the planet. That was a stupid move on my part. The only thing that keeps it in the "stupid move" pile and not the "criminally insane" pile, was that the projection I cited was from quite early on, and things were moving really fast and we had no idea how long it was going to last. The CDC wasn't even really exploring at the time a multiple-year outbreak. The number scales up, but that doesn't matter when the context does not.

Incidentally their models said 200,000 to 1.7 million and, gosh, that's quite a wide span and we're almost exactly in the center of it. Yay US!

By the way, did you know the life expectency is Niger is not even 65 years? That's legit horrifying. Maybe the reason their reported COVID deaths are so low is that everyone's dying of something else first. India it's 70, the US is nearly 80, Japan and Hong Kong lead the world north of 85. Japan's COVID death rate is also really low. And like 28% of Japan is over 65 right now. And their death count is like one-eigteenth ours, per capita. So whatever they're doing, whether it's one variable or several, it's clearly working.

You could also look at Sweden vs Finland. Finland is doing much better in proportional COVID deaths, no surprise they're Finland they're the best in the world at everything except maybe suntans and sobriety. But the two countries are back-to-back geographically and in life expectency (they're both about 83), yet Sweden's seen five times the proportionate kills, give or take a sauna. Now, I know just enough about both Sweden and Finland both before and during the pandemic to say there are significant impactful differences that could lead to those higher numbers. So could you, I bet, how Sweden's handled the pandemic isn't exactly hard news to find. Is it the hospitals? The culture of socialization? The, erm, questionable early stance that Sweden took? A mix? Probably that last one. And Sweden seems to be trying harder now, even if "harder" is a low bar to clear.

[PhaelixWW]

Got some for free yesterday while picking up a prescription.

Yeah, but since they're not washable like the cloth ones or cheap like the surgical ones, it's not really feasible for everyone to continually use N95 masks for months to years.

WHO thinks it IFR is 0.5-1.0% based on high-income countries https://www.who.int/news-room/commen...-from-covid-19 - whereas Imperial College estimated it to be 1.15% in high-income countries and 0.23% in low-income countries (based on age-structure and with uncertainty of course) https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-globa...report-34-IFR/ and thus global average somewhere in the middle, perhaps 0.7% (likely lower). With 0.7% global average that means we would at most have gotten 55 million deaths (if everyone was infected)

Both of those IFR estimates were pre-delta. Heck, they were pre-alpha, for that matter. But more importantly...

Obviously that assumes that the health-care systems aren't overrun, or that overrun health-care systems don't impact the result significantly.

...this. Had no measures been taken, there would have been a huge secondary effect on mortality.

100-200m is by no means a certainty, but it's easily within the realm of realistic plausibility.

We did, in the earlier days, see a variety of different projections of US, EU, and worldwide deaths.

Hey, remember when the IMHE was predicting 60k deaths in the US?

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh...

[Rasulis]

Likely a computation error. Still funny.

[Breccia]

Likely a computation error.

Well now I want to see the real thing.

EDIT: Found it. Yeah back in November through January it was closer to 2:1 then they split. Huh. I thought the gap would be wider.

[Rasulis]

Well now I want to see the real thing.

EDIT: Found it. Yeah back in November through January it was closer to 2:1 then they split. Huh. I thought the gap would be wider.

Not sure. Here is a screenshot from the spreadsheet going back 2 weeks. It does not look like a one-time thing. The positivity rate among the not fully vaccinated is actually going up.

[Breccia]

It does not look like a one-time thing. The positivity rate among the not fully vaccinated is actually going up.

I mean...2:1 to 1000:1 in a few weeks? Something about that feels off.

[Forogil]

Both of those IFR estimates were pre-delta. Heck, they were pre-alpha, for that matter. But more importantly...

It's true that they were pre-Delta (and pre-Omicron), but that actually cuts both ways. If we hadn't stopped the original wave with lockdowns most people would have been infected by then; it's plausible that it would have given the survivors some protection against Delta (in particular death; less so for infection) - reducing its severity (but obviously that would mean 39 million deaths in 2020).

...this. Had no measures been taken, there would have been a huge secondary effect on mortality.

Possibly, but the fairly quick propagation of Delta through India in 2021 seemed to be close to such a scenario and the number of deaths were still in line with those original numbers.

Hey, remember when the IMHE was predicting 60k deaths in the US?

And currently 2.5k deaths are reported every day in the US.
Currently they predict that the US will be down to less than 1k deaths per day in two weeks - I still have my doubts.

For several countries even their "predictions" for today and yesterday are far from the reported numbers and trends.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm going to assume you neant "old" not "literally 65 years of age" when countries have a wide range of life expectancies and quality of health care.

I'm not saying that 65 year is a magic number, but that AGE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RISK FACTOR.

Look back two pages and you see that IFR is 0.1% at age 45, 1% at age 65, 10% at age 85 (give a take a bit). And most countries have somewhat similar age-structure above 65, so fewer 65 year olds mean proportionally fewer 85 year olds, and thus the risks are lower in the developing countries.

Japan's COVID death rate is also really low. And like 28% of Japan is over 65 right now. And their death count is like one-eigteenth ours, per capita. So whatever they're doing, whether it's one variable or several, it's clearly working.

Their approach has been fairly different from western countries, and not many of the usual lockdown - but just focused on the three Cs:
(1) closed spaces with poor ventilation; (2) crowded places with many people nearby; and (3) close-contact settings such as close-range conversations
They kept trains running, since people don't talk on them. (I also recall cinemas were open more than in other countries.)
Some believe one simple explanation is that people actually follows the instructions.
They also had failures that didn't seem to matter: late start for testing and vaccination efforts.

Some doubt whether the numbers are accurate, but https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker indicate no significant unexplained excess deaths.

[Rasulis]

I mean...2:1 to 1000:1 in a few weeks? Something about that feels off.

The gap started to grow around early January starting from less than 2 : 1, by Jan 14 it was 3 : 1, then it accelerated rapidly from there.

We'll see if they fix it by Monday.

[Breccia]

I'm not saying that 65 year is a magic number

I didn't think you were. And yes, age is important. It is still good to see countries with an even higher 65+ age percent than ours, doing so much better than we are. It means those countries really care about their citizens.

[Raelbo]

OH! OH! OH! I know! *raises hand*

They'll fucking die. Lots of fuckers will die. Stupid fuckers, not so stupid fuckers, and some collateral damage because they were around/related to/intruded upon by stupid fuckers. Random chance, toss of the dice, some people will die who took precautions and tried to be safe. Most of them though? Dead stupid fuckers.

Sadly, I do not believe that this was the case with this virus. Well, at least not pre-vaccine.

And that makes me pretty angry to be honest. The burden of consequences for the irresponsibility, arrogance and stupidity of people who refused (or just CBA) to comply with the measures being taken against the pandemic fell onto everyone, including a significant number of people who were, as you put it, collateral damage.

Using myself as an example, our family followed all the protocols. We isolated as much as we could with almost zero social interaction and avoided all unnecessary contact with other people. But for a lot of other people, it was a case of trying to do as much as possible as long as they could get away with it. For example, my idiot neighbour who every second weekend had a crowd of people over for a barbecue. Or my bowling league who insisted on continuing to bowl in that ill-ventilated basement, thinking they were fine because they sanitized their hands, did temperature screening and wore masks (don't get me wrong, all these measures are good and useful and help, but but they are far from fool-proof. It's like putting on a hoodie before venturing out into a blizzard - better than nothing, but not nearly enough to make you safe). I could go on about religious gatherings, people insisting on sitting down at restaurants to eat, a rave at the beach with 10 000 kids etc etc.

So when our country hit our third wave, my wife picked it up at work (despite following all protocols). Her choices in regards to being at work were either be there or not get paid, so that's not really a choice. By the time she even realised she was infected, my kids and I were too. Fortunately we all pulled through, although in my case, with pneumonia in one lung and hospitals around the country nearing capacity, and oxygen supplies running dangerously low, it was a pretty scary experience.

Around the time I had just recently watched the film "The Impossible" - a story about a family caught by the Tsunami in Thailand, 2004. And that resonated strongly with our Covid experience. It was like we were hit by a Tsunami. But instead of this being a force of nature, it was a Tsunami created by literally millions of acts of human stupidity, selfishness and arrogance.

So yeah, I take a rather dim view of everyone who willfully does shit that makes this pandemic worse, and especially those, like @Strawberry who actively try and promote the stupidity. Because while they'll happily incorrectly assess the risks for themselves, they completely fail to care about the consequences their stupidity has for everyone else around them.

The one small comfort now with the vaccine at least is that most of the risk of this stupidity falls on those being stupid. But still, the risk to a vaccinated person, while significantly lower, is not zero.

[Edge-]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article258173728.html

Fellow Republican conservatives rallied Tuesday behind a Kansas physician-legislator who's under investigation by the state medical board, advancing his measures to protect doctors pursuing potentially dangerous treatments for COVID-19 and to weaken childhood vaccination requirements.

As a Senate health committee member, state Sen. Mark Steffen successfully pushed a proposal that would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions of the anti-worm medication ivermectin, the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and other drugs for off-label uses as COVID-19 treatments. Steffen is among the Republican-controlled Legislature's biggest vaccine skeptics and a critic of how the federal government and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly have handled the coronavirus pandemic.

Steffen also successfully persuaded the Republican-dominated committee to add a proposal to make it easy for parents to claim religious exemptions from vaccine requirements at schools and day cares. Kansas requires children to be vaccinated against more than a dozen diseases — including polio and measles.

So getting more horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs in folks bodies doing a whole lot of nothing.

AND MORE EXEMPTIONS FOR VACCINES IN GENERAL?! YEAH, LET'S BRING BACK POLIO AND MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN! LET'S CRIPPLE CHILDREN FOR LIFE! LET'S RISK THEM LIVING IN AN IRON LUNG OR BEING PARAPLEGIC BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS ARE STUPID RETARDS!

This country ain't gonna survive this pandemic. Been saying it for years, and I'm still saying it.

[Poopymonster]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article258173728.html



So getting more horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs in folks bodies doing a whole lot of nothing.

AND MORE EXEMPTIONS FOR VACCINES IN GENERAL?! YEAH, LET'S BRING BACK POLIO AND MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN! LET'S CRIPPLE CHILDREN FOR LIFE! LET'S RISK THEM LIVING IN AN IRON LUNG OR BEING PARAPLEGIC BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS ARE STUPID RETARDS!

This country ain't gonna survive this pandemic. Been saying it for years, and I'm still saying it.

You know what? Fuck it. At this point let em have it. If Covid won't get em, let them poison themselves.

Can the drug makers, who if I recall when they get it permission to put a drug on the market is FOR a specific purpose, and offset purposes, sue the docs because "Our drug wasn't approved to treat Covid, but it's a damn fine cure for stupid. This drug was approved for things that distinctly are NOT Covid." Could a pharmacist refuse to fill it due to their Sensibilities or their Deeply Held Conviction that life is precious and they won't poison people regardless of doc's order, or refuse due to the negative interaction between horse dewormer and the continued viability of a human life?

@cubby, I know Breccia usually tags you on things legal, but this one has me curious.

[Edge-]

You know what? Fuck it. At this point let em have it. If Covid won't get em, let them poison themselves.

If it only impacted the retards, I'd agree. But -

1. It impacts others since those folks may now be going to the hospital with covid and shitting out their intestines because they took too much horse dewormer.

2. Their children may be afflicted by easily avoidable diseases that will leave them with lifelong side effects, and could spur small outbreaks that are a threat to immunocompromised folks that rely on heard immunity like we saw in Disneyland with the measles (I believe) some years back.

It's functionally child abuse.

[Traveler Voltin]

Lots of hate here.

[unfilteredJW]

Lots of hate here.

Just for misinformation and those that push it.

[Rasulis]

Lots of hate here.

Anybody who claimed Covid death is in line with the common cold better back it up with solid numbers.

[PhaelixWW]

Anybody who claimed Covid death is in line with the common cold better back it up with solid numbers.

The interesting thing is that deaths from the "common cold" are actually much, much higher than they're commonly believed to be.

They're also, of course, massively less than the number of COVID deaths, so...

[DarkAmbient]

Deaths and hospitalisations falling nicely here. Almost all restrictions ended. You still have to wear a mask in healthcare settings but that's about it. Honestly feels like it's pretty much done at this point. People aren't talking about it much anymore and the media are focusing on other things.

[cubby]

You know what? Fuck it. At this point let em have it. If Covid won't get em, let them poison themselves.

Can the drug makers, who if I recall when they get it permission to put a drug on the market is FOR a specific purpose, and offset purposes, sue the docs because "Our drug wasn't approved to treat Covid, but it's a damn fine cure for stupid. This drug was approved for things that distinctly are NOT Covid." Could a pharmacist refuse to fill it due to their Sensibilities or their Deeply Held Conviction that life is precious and they won't poison people regardless of doc's order, or refuse due to the negative interaction between horse dewormer and the continued viability of a human life?

@cubby, I know Breccia usually tags you on things legal, but this one has me curious.

That whole category of ancillary uses for drugs is crazy complicated. The reason is because doctors are finding seriously legitimate secondary uses for major and minor drugs, that work really well for something the drug itself was never developed for, including curing things like Alzheimer's and Cancer. And we want that kind of thing to continue, because as much as doctors play a smart game, they are still uncertain on so many basic things re the human body (not criticizing, just saying in explanation) - for instance, we don't know why humans get headaches, or why aspirin/etc cures them, nor why/who anesthesia works. So when doctors/scientists stumble upon a drug that was designed to do one thing, but actually does something else that is interesting/awesome, we want them to pursue that knowledge and see how it plays out.

The problem, as usual, is when fucking idiots try and do what legitimately smart people have been doing.

The issues with the "did my own research" fuckwads is that they lean on legitimacy to validate their own ignorant theories. And then to make it worse they cite personal stories instead of legitimate studies (studies which don't exist) and then expect their data to be held in the same hand as real scientists. And then it snowballs when you add in all the other bullshit.

So short answer, no, the drug companies more than likely won't have a cause of action. But they also won't be held liable when their drugs are used for concerns they weren't developed to address.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article258173728.html

Fellow Republican conservatives rallied Tuesday behind a Kansas physician-legislator who's under investigation by the state medical board, advancing his measures to protect doctors pursuing potentially dangerous treatments for COVID-19 and to weaken childhood vaccination requirements.

As a Senate health committee member, state Sen. Mark Steffen successfully pushed a proposal that would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions of the anti-worm medication ivermectin, the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and other drugs for off-label uses as COVID-19 treatments. Steffen is among the Republican-controlled Legislature's biggest vaccine skeptics and a critic of how the federal government and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly have handled the coronavirus pandemic.

Steffen also successfully persuaded the Republican-dominated committee to add a proposal to make it easy for parents to claim religious exemptions from vaccine requirements at schools and day cares. Kansas requires children to be vaccinated against more than a dozen diseases — including polio and measles.

So getting more horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs in folks bodies doing a whole lot of nothing.

AND MORE EXEMPTIONS FOR VACCINES IN GENERAL?! YEAH, LET'S BRING BACK POLIO AND MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN! LET'S CRIPPLE CHILDREN FOR LIFE! LET'S RISK THEM LIVING IN AN IRON LUNG OR BEING PARAPLEGIC BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS ARE STUPID RETARDS!

This country ain't gonna survive this pandemic. Been saying it for years, and I'm still saying it.

The United States is slowly moving towards Gilead.

[Traveler Voltin]

Just for misinformation and those that push it.

There is a lot of that going around