Covid 19 virus

[Mr. Scram]

Google search for "corona virus age bracket", first hit:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-new-age-analysis-of-risk-confirms-young-adults-not-invincible/

The CDC does not have complete data (such as on use of an ICU) for all counted cases, and therefore gave a range for its estimates.

More than raw numbers, the percent of total cases gives a sense of the risk to different age groups. For instance, just 1.6% to 2.5% of 123 infected people 19 and under were admitted to hospitals; none needed intensive care and none has died.

But of the 144 cases in people 85 and older, 31% to 71% were hospitalized and 6.3% to 29% needed intensive care. The death rate in that age group was 10% to 27%.

In contrast, among people 20 to 44, 14% to 21% of 705 cases were admitted to hospitals and 2% to 4% to ICUs; 0.1% to 0.2% died.

So, yes, if you're not already in your twenties, chances are you just shrug it off. But in every other age bracket, chances are you're in for hospitalization and even ICU treatment.

I guess you could argue about definitions but I'd qualify that as a rather small percentage, especially as the reported patients are likely the tip of a bigger iceberg with people unaware of their infection or just staying at home for a few days. The numbers or stories don't seem to reflect healthy people needing a lot of help. Elderly or people with pre-existing conditions are at risk and tend to need some to a lot of help.

[Mr. Scram]

Well the Italians did and we're seeing it now too. So you will be next to see it.

Please quote numbers and sources. Gloomy prophecies aren't helpful.

[james_s]

Even if the young and healthy won't die, it still means that many of them will need intensive care in order not to.

Do they? I'm not really seeing that right now.

So far that matches all the official data I've come across too. Children very rarely show more than very mild symptoms, the severity rises with age but even in middle age a majority have nothing more than normal cold/flu-like symptoms. Beyond age 60 the risk of serious complications rises dramatically, although the same is true of the flu.

Last I heard, the flu was responsible for 12,000 deaths so far this season in the USA. The extreme disparity in reaction between the flu and Covid does not appear rational to me.

"Chances are" implies a majority. If 70% of infections resulted in hospitalization then I'd consider it reasonable to say that "chances are you will end up in the hospital if you are infected" but in reality "chances are" you will recover without complications regardless of your age group if you are in reasonable overall health. That doesn't mean it is guaranteed or that there is not a very real risk but a substantial majority are recovering on their own.

[iMo]

It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked. It's not unlikely the period after the major wave has unusually low numbers of people dying as the more fragile citizens are already gone. The vast majority of the population has much better chances than 1 in 100 and a small portion is at significant risk.

No way. Currently there are people on intensive care here in the 30-50 age group. Take the breathing equipment away and they might die. A regular flu does not put a substantial part of the healthy population on intensive care in a matter of weeks. And then there is more: doctors say patients who recover may face damaged lung tissue and be affected for life. That's not your regular flu.

Pre-existing conditions add percentages. Many of the 30-50 age "healthy" persons (especially in Europe and US) posses some of them, without knowing about it..

[Mr. Scram]

No way. Currently there are people on intensive care here in the 30-50 age group. Take the breathing equipment away and they might die. A regular flu does not put a substantial part of the healthy population on intensive care in a matter of weeks. And then there is more: doctors say patients who recover may face damaged lung tissue and be affected for life. That's not your regular flu.

I disagree. The regular flu costs many lives every year and that's despite it being both heavily monitored and fought with extensive flu shot programs. I don't think people understand the effort that goes into keeping the flu manageable. Yet that too is something most healthy people shrug off or sit out.

[james_s]

No way. Currently there are people on intensive care here in the 30-50 age group. Take the breathing equipment away and they might die. A regular flu does not put a substantial part of the healthy population on intensive care in a matter of weeks. And then there is more: doctors say patients who recover may face damaged lung tissue and be affected for life. That's not your regular flu.

I disagree. The regular flu costs many lives every year and that's despite it being both heavily monitored and fought with extensive flu shot programs. I don't think people understand the effort that goes into keeping the flu manageable. Yet that too is something most healthy people shrug off or sit out.

The flue kills between 10,000 and 20,000 people every year in the USA. That's around 30-60 people every day, some of them quite young, when I was a kid one of my little brother's friends died of the flu when he was 8 or 9. Jim Henson died of the flu when he was 53. The flu is very dangerous and potentially quite lethal, we have a safe, fairly effective, readily available and inexpensive vaccine and yet we have countless people too lazy to get vaccinated and others who actively refuse to be vaccinated.

Most people are not saying that Covid-19 is harmless but rather it is not drastically more dangerous than the flu and yet the reaction is about 10 orders of magnitude more severe, I've never in my life seen this kind of hype around an infectious disease, and I'd like to see a bit of it spread out to other deadly diseases and less panic overall. The economic fallout of the panic is going to be far more harmful ultimately than the disease itself.

[Mr. Scram]

Below is an article about the risk the virus poses to various age groups and how that compares to the flu. It confirms that while younger people do get gravely ill that indeed is the exception. The group of people younger than 40 y/o dying is very small and may have had pre-existing conditions.

"There will be, as we’ve seen in influenza, an occasional person, who’s young and healthy, who winds up getting COVID-19, seriously ill and dies,” Fauci said in an interview with Dr. Howard Bauchner, the editor of JAMA. “But if you look at the weight of the data, the risk group is very, very clear."

"People 60 and older accounted for more than 80% of the deaths in China, according to a major study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

"Indeed, in the 2018-19 flu season, 2,450 people between the ages of 18 and 49 died in the United States, according to the CDC. The mortality rate from the flu is lower than from COVID-19, but far more people caught the flu last season — more than 35 million — than have gotten COVID-19 so far this year."


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/covid-19-risk-healthy-young-person

[Sredni]

Last I heard, the flu was responsible for 12,000 deaths so far this season in the USA. The extreme disparity in reaction between the flu and Covid does not appear rational to me.

If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler.

I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks.
Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode?
What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee.
The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current.

But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems.
The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them.

If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket.
Think magic smoke escaping from a diode.

[Mr. Scram]

If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler.

I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks.
Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode?
What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee.
The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current.

But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems.
The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them.

If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket.
Think magic smoke escaping from a diode.

Please be civil. What you say doesn't necessarily contradict what james_s posted.

[james_s]

Last I heard, the flu was responsible for 12,000 deaths so far this season in the USA. The extreme disparity in reaction between the flu and Covid does not appear rational to me.

If had a dime every time I have read this bullshit, Jeff Bezos would be my butler.

I mean, of all places, this is a forum for electronics-oriented folks.
Have you ever seen the characteristic of a diode?
What you are seeing now with Covid-19 is the part close to the axis, before the knee.
The number you mention about the flu is the maximum allowed current.

But mortality when all people have access to hospitalization and ICU when needed is the least of the problems.
The real problem is the 20% that will require hospitalization when there will be no more place for them.

If the curve is not flattened, this will make the mortality skyrocket.
Think magic smoke escaping from a diode.

Yes I'm familiar with this, but why are we so lax about the flu when it kills so many thousands so predictably every year?

And why are people in such a panic about Covid? Most of us will get it at some point, most of us will survive, a few will not, mostly the old and/or weak, mother nature is a cruel mistress.

My point is not that Covid is harmless, it's that the flu is dangerous and that we should be responding rationally to both, not panicking, hoarding toilet paper and filling the airwaves with heavily sensationalized news that stirs up fear and panic. The fallout from the panic is going to kill many more people than the virus. Overreacting with fear also pushes others to blow off the danger as BS and overreact with carelessness. We should be careful, we should take steps, but we should also remain calm, not panic and carefully weigh the impacts of our reaction on society and consider the cost in life and everything else of some of the actions we are taking. If the economy collapses and we face massive unemployment large numbers of people will die due to lack of healthcare, food, shelter and other essentials.

My view is similar to aviation. When you are flying a plane and something goes wrong, the #1 priority *always* is FLY THE PLANE. Then manage any other available resources to try to solve the problem and get out of trouble, but if you panic and crash because you are so focused on reacting to the problem that you forgot your most basic priority then the rest is moot. In our case our main priority needs to be to keep society going, keep people employed, keep the world running because if that all comes crashing down we won't have the luxury to worry about some people getting sick.

[iMo]

Some interesting reading on numbers:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

[Mr. Scram]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

[Cerebus]

Well the Italians did and we're seeing it now too. So you will be next to see it.

Please quote numbers and sources. Gloomy prophecies aren't helpful.

Figures being used by the Imperial College group for their modelling.

Age group	Percentage of symptomatic cases that will require hospitalization	Percentage of those hospitalized that will require ICU	Infection Fatality Ratio	Population by age group (UK mid 2019)
0-9	0.10%	5.00%	0.002%	8,052,552
10-19	0.30%	5.00%	0.006%	7,528,144
20-29	1.20%	5.00%	0.03%	8,711,750
30-39	3.20%	5.00%	0.08%	8,835,591
40-49	4.90%	6.30%	0.15%	8,500,792
50-59	10.20%	12.20%	0.60%	8,968,055
60-69	16.60%	27.40%	2.20%	7,069,544
70-79	24.30%	43.20%	5.10%	5,487,167
80+	27.30%	70.90%	9.30%	3,281,955

[SilverSolder]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

How about doing some electronics? 

I've been experimenting with exporting waveforms sampled by an oscilloscope, and using them as input to an LTSpice simulation.  Works surprisingly well!

[Cerebus]

The flu is very dangerous and potentially quite lethal, we have a safe, fairly effective, readily available and inexpensive vaccine and yet we have countless people too lazy to get vaccinated and others who actively refuse to be vaccinated.

As you're talking about the US, don't forget the people who can't get it for free but can't afford it - typical price in the US if you have to pay yourself $40. Multiply that by number of family members and that's a big chunk of cash for some people. So it's not just people who are "too lazy to get vaccinated and others who actively refuse to be vaccinated" as you characterise it.

[Sredni]

Yes I'm familiar with this, but why are we so lax about the flu when it kills so many thousands so predictably every year?

10 thousand are nothing compared to the damage Covid-19 can cause.
You are comparing the maximum current of a small signal diode with the maximum current of a power diode.

And why are people in such a panic about Covid? Most of us will get it at some point, most of us will survive, a few will not, mostly the old and/or weak, mother nature is a cruel mistress.

It's not panic, it's awareness of the risks necessary to mitigate the deadly outcome.
Do the math, and compute after how many days your country will run out of hospital beds.
The flu is a joke in comparison.
And yes, the flu is scaringly deadly. But by comparison this is far worse.

I mean, have any of you guys seen what is happening in Italy? The hospital overwhelmed? The cemeteries overwhelmed? Do you think it's even slightly comparable to the flu?
People who think it's not that different from the flu is the cause of the unnecessary spread. And that unnecessary spread is the cause of the hospitals being overwhelmed.
And that leads to unnecessary deaths.

And the problem is that I called bullshit a bullshit?



It's like watching frogs being slowly boiled.




Hey Dave, it's still too soon for that image?

[nctnico]

Yes I'm familiar with this, but why are we so lax about the flu when it kills so many thousands so predictably every year?

Covid19 is likely to kill a lot more. First because of the higher mortality rate and secondly due to the severeness of the symptoms. Look at the UK numbers Cerebus posted. Likely none of the people over 50 will have an ICU bed available and will die if they need one. Do the math. In these age groups alone and you are getting into the hundreds of thousands of people easely. And nobody is lax about flu. Older people tend to get flu shots which do help.

[Bud]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

How about assholes  stop visiting this thread if they have nothing to say.

[Cerebus]

Based on figures here: 2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates

The estimated case fatality ratio (all ages) for seasonal influenza in the USA in this year's flu season is between 0.04% and 0.15%. The estimated age weighted case fatality ratio for SARS-Covid-2 based on the Imperial College data is 1.23%. That's a 6.2 to 30.7 times higher case fatality ratio for SARS-Covid-2 than for this year's seasonal flu.

Given that there is no pre-existing community immunity to SARS-Covid-2 whereas there is for flu the absolute number of cases is going to be higher than for flu, for which the CDC estimate there where between 36 - 51 million cases this year (crudely 10 - 20% of the population). If SARS-Covid-2 was responsible for only as few cases of infection as flu has been in the US this year there would be between 442,800 - 627,300 Covid related deaths (compared to the estimate for flu this year of 22,000 - 55,000 deaths).

So anybody who still thinks this is only as bad as flu, and that unnecessary fuss is being made, think again.

[Mr. Scram]

Covid19 is likely to kill a lot more. First because of the higher mortality rate and secondly due to the severeness of the symptoms. Look at the UK numbers Cerebus posted. Likely none of the people over 50 will have an ICU bed available and will die if they need one. Do the math. In these age groups alone and you are getting into the hundreds of thousands of people easely. And nobody is lax about flu. Older people tend to get flu shots which do help.

The UK numbers are estimates and projections, not actual numbers. The issue is we don't have great numbers right now so we need to do some worst case guesstimating.

[Mr. Scram]

Based on figures here: 2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates

The estimated case fatality ratio (all ages) for seasonal influenza in the USA in this year's flu season is between 0.04% and 0.15%. The estimated age weighted case fatality ratio for SARS-Covid-2 based on the Imperial College data is 1.23%. That's a 6.2 to 30.7 times higher case fatality ratio for SARS-Covid-2 than for this year's seasonal flu.

Given that there is no pre-existing community immunity to SARS-Covid-2 whereas there is for flu the absolute number of cases is going to be higher than for flu, for which the CDC estimate there where between 36 - 51 million cases this year (crudely 10 - 20% of the population). If SARS-Covid-2 was responsible for only as few cases of infection as flu has been in the US this year there would be between 442,800 - 627,300 Covid related deaths (compared to the estimate for flu this year of 22,000 - 55,000 deaths).

So anybody who still thinks this is only as bad as flu, and that unnecessary fuss is being made, think again.

The article posted a few posts up details how we don't have reliable numbers and the ones we do have are likely skewed. It's still a situation we need to take seriously.

[Cerebus]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

How about assholes  stop visiting this thread if they have nothing to say.

As opposed, obviously, to your valued, reasoned, contributions so far:

The Goddamn experts can go to hell.  It were them saying 3 weeks ago that there is no need to close the  borders and they will never do it. Fuck your experts.

When things go hairy, the last thing people should be doing is listening to "advice from the experts".

India has found a cure for Covid !

https://qz.com/india/1811526/bizarre-coronavirus-remedies-suggested-by-indian-politicians/amp/

and so on. If you believe your own advice to be good, perhaps you might take it yourself?

[Mr. Scram]

10 thousand are nothing compared to the damage Covid-19 can cause.
You are comparing the maximum current of a small signal diode with the maximum current of a power diode.

It's not panic, it's awareness of the risks necessary to mitigate the deadly outcome.
Do the math, and compute after how many days your country will run out of hospital beds.
The flu is a joke in comparison.
And yes, the flu is scaringly deadly. But by comparison this is far worse.

I mean, have any of you guys seen what is happening in Italy? The hospital overwhelmed? The cemeteries overwhelmed? Do you think it's even slightly comparable to the flu?
People who think it's not that different from the flu is the cause of the unnecessary spread. And that unnecessary spread is the cause of the hospitals being overwhelmed.
And that leads to unnecessary deaths.

And the problem is that I called bullshit a bullshit?



It's like watching frogs being slowly boiled.


Hey Dave, it's still too soon for that image?

Calm down. Remember to breathe. Frenzied posting about how Italy is burning down isn't helping anyone, especially when you consistently omit to post numbers and sources. Less emotions and more facts. You also may want to read the article posted before.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

[Mr. Scram]

How about assholes  stop visiting this thread if they have nothing to say.

Yes, please.

[Sredni]

Calm down. Remember to breathe. Frenzied posting about how Italy is burning down isn't helping anyone, especially when you consistently omit to post numbers and sources.

Numbers? Sources?
Do you really believe this is made up?
The numbers in Italy come from the institutions there, namely the "Protezione Civile". You can read them on any 'Coronavirus counter', for example the one run by Johns Hopkins University. They match.
The "Eco di Bergamo" newspaper had ten pages of obituaries, when usually there is only one.
Does this tell you something about how silly is it to talk about the incidence of the number of tests on the CFR?
If the mortality was 10, 20 or 60 times less then EDIT: the current CFR and hence comparable to EDIT the flu you would not see that many deaths.
All the hospitals of Lombardy are running out of ICUs. And several dozens patients had already been offloaded to other regions.

Less emotions and more facts. You also may want to read the article posted before.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

Oh, I have read it. And I have already seen this before . There is always the odd virologist or odd epidemiologist who makes this kind of predictions. There were one or two in Italy as well, now they have retracted or are nowhere to be found. And they were considered highly esteemed professionals in their field.

Probably excellent doctors, a bit weak in math.
Have you read the comments? Someone there is asking where did he pull that number from.

Do you think you are original?
I've seen this going on in Italy, in Spain, in France, in UK and now in the US. It is almost unbelievable how similar the patter is, despite all the cultural differences.

The really sad part is that I do not need to convince you.
You will see for yourself.

Then, when you will try to warn people from other countries that this is not a statistical artifact, they will probably tell you "calm down, breathe". I hope you won't find the latter difficult.