Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Day 64: COVID-19 “Shelter-in-Place”
Today the screengrab is featuring a different data site: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus. I am also focusing on the death count because, to the first order, the fear of catastrophic death counts is what is driving the politicians to restrict liberty for their various populations. While politicians seek praise, they fear blame.
The President at the virus press briefing yesterday squarely addressed the issue of trade-offs between fighting the virus and killing the economy. Of course, the press wants to act incredulous that he would even consider “money” versus lives. But the reality is that impoverishment kills. I don’t know that the President is the most articulate spokesman for the economic arguments. But if you were watching and have concerns about trashing the economy in the process of fighting the virus, you took comfort in his words. The press wants to believe that Trump just wants to preserve his economic record, is just throwing a tantrum over what the necessities of fighting the virus have done to his singular achievement.
Maybe Sen. John Kennedy put it better when he highlighted that we love our children and our grandchildren and are concerned about what kind of America we are leaving to them. That, as a senior himself, he would far rather take the risk of death than to destroy the country in the name of preserving older citizens. If that is the trade-off what is the question? Why would we condemn our young to a life of impoverishment to add a few days, months, years to us who are superannuated?
And this assumes that the projections for the pandemic are true. If, as Richard Epstein has capably argued, the virus is not as deadly as supposed by those who are tanking the economy, we are making a mistake of incredible proportions if we persist in shuttering Main Street for an extended period. President Trump accepted a 15-day period of extreme measures, but he is clearly worried about letting it go on much longer. Never bet against this man’s instincts.
The press wants to lock him into following the most conservative medical advice he is getting. The press wants to portray him as cavalier about the lives of so many. The press are idiots, ideological idiots. And the climbing numbers will support them in the short run. If we wait for an undisputed “all clear” signal, we will emerge only to see desolation. The call needs to be made while the risks still remain. President Trump will do that, but we need to have his back.
[Note: Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
Can’t like that. So no, not just the flu. And not just the elderly or ailing.
We really need definitive answers on the following:
The answers to the first two tend to better enforce self isolation when not already symptomatic and social distancing. The answers to the latter two give a better sense of hour at risk you are individually. Anyone who gets severely ill is 100% affected and might regret doing things because they only had a 5% risk, but having everyone assuming they are at high risk of severe illness or death does not make a sustaining society possible.
You’re probably right, but I’m not a doctor and I can’t afford to be second guessing the experts. This is a time for me to sit back, try to follow instructions, and hope that the people who are better informed know what they’re doing. After it’s over we can judge whether the right steps were taken.
Yes, a sustaining society is not possible under the terms we’ve been ordered to obey, but if too many people die, then society likewise will not be sustained.
From an Arnold Kling blog post, he raises a couple of other questions about spread mechanisms and the efficacy of masks. What if we knew with some certainty that surgical or relatively simple masks could truly inhibit transmission? And what if masks were then universally adopted here, as
isin East Asia? That would be a low-cost public health intervention that would also be congenial to getting more people out of quarantine and back into the economy.Except it’s not exponential, and the growth rate has already declined. I don’t know what measures have been adopted in Alberta, but there’s usually a 5-7 day incubation period, so we wouldn’t expect them to be effective for about a week. You can let us know what measures went into effect, and when.
I have a spreadsheet of the Johns Hopkins data, so I was quickly able to calculate the daily rates of increase in reported cases in Alberta. Alberta’s first reported case was on March 6, and the total yesterday (March 25) was 358. But the curve is not exponential. The average daily growth rate was 62% for the first week, 31% for the second week, and 25% since (4 days). Thus, the rate is declining. This has been the trend in every country that I have evaluated.
There’s no quantitative data in that article. No one has said that it is just the elderly. It is disproportionately affecting the elderly, so to evaluate the claims in the linked article, we would need to know how many of the patients are in the younger age categories (which were 40s and 50s in this report). Unfortunately, the story gives no such data.
Can we get a doc to tell us about ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome)? The American Lung Association states that it can be caused by sepsis, pneumonia, trauma, or other things. Pneumonia, as I understand it, can be caused by the flu, and appears to be the major cause of death from COVID-19. The Wikipedia entry had the same 40% mortality rate reported in the linked story (though confirmation from a doc would be helpful).
An even bigger question is whether the 40% mortality rate from ARDS (if correct) is with ventilator treatment, or without ventilator treatment.
trump derangement syndrome
it’s not 100 percent successful but it is helping many patients recover… s korea, china and uk have stopped exporting chloroquine and hydroxchloroquine
Covid 19 can cause a severe viral pneumonia that results in ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome.
From WebMD
What Is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome?
Acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS) is a condition that causes fluid to build up in your lungs so oxygen can’t get to your organs.
Fluid leaks from small blood vessels and collects in tiny air sacs in your lungs so they can’t fill with enough air. Because of this, your blood can’t pick up the oxygen it needs to carry to the rest of your body. Organs such as your kidneys or brain might not work the way they should or might shut down.
End Web MD.
The alveoli, the part of your lung where gas exchange occurs get inflamed and damaged. Fluid leaks into the alveoli and oxygen can no longer pass into the capillaries where it gets transported throughout the body. Later the fluid gets thicker and the alveoli get scarred and damaged, with impaired gas exchange in the future as a possible outcome.
Normal Chest Xray
ARDS
All the white in the ARDS CXR is fluid.
Covid Chest CT
The viral pneumonia caused by Covid is severe, causes the patient to require high levels of oxygen at high pressure to get the oxygen into their blood stream through the very stiff resistant lungs. My understanding is the average patient once intubated requires a ventilator for 10 to 13 days a very long time on a ventilator.