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Flatten the Curve… or So We Were Told
Let’s not lose sight of the original objective. We were told the objective was to flatten the curve so as not to ‘overwhelm’ hospitals. Fine. The objective was never to eradicate the virus. In fact, we wanted to prolong the life of the virus so we could ‘flatten’ the curve.
According to the IHME, the worst is over in NY.
California is supposed to reach peak deaths on April 15.
Once a state is past its peak, shouldn’t we lift the quarantine?
Some people will say if we lift the quarantine then the rate of transmission and infection will increase. That may be true but that is a drawback or tradeoff of ‘flattening the curve.’
Are hospitals overwhelmed? No, not even in NY.
Is there a ventilator shortage? No, not even in NY.
Has hydroxychloroquine demonstrated utility? Yes, even in NY.
NY which has 13x deaths than in California has a quarantine until April 30 while California has extended it quarantine to May 15. This makes very little sense in terms of economics and epidemiology.
Let’s stop this nonsense before the contagion of absurdity gets worse.
The curve is flat.
End of story.
Published in General
By the way, after IHME’s last release on April 10 told us that April 10 was the peak day — their April 13 release (today) predicted that today would be the peak, at 2,150 deaths.
The actual for today, per Johns Hopkins, is 1,509, which is down from yesterday.
So why the later date? Do you (or anyone else) have any idea what data has made them push the date out further?
Just out of curiosity, are you envisioning this continued sheltering to be voluntary or involuntary?
Texas Monthly’s managed to shift their political coverage over the past 2-3 years to the point it’s to the left of the Texas Observer, which is saying something. They coverage on COVID-19 has been similar to the East Coast media outlets, except they focus their aim at Greg Abbott instead of Trump (with a few side trips over to dinging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick). This story is similar to the ones that came out last week from the national media, with a barely-concealed wish fulfillment that while the virus may be focused mainly in urban counties and their suburbs right now, it will soon decimate the rural areas (because those stupid people don’t follow orders and just do whatever the hell they want to).
No idea
I realize this is a lazy answer but their website is cumbersome
Weeping,
Very good question. I think we could go with “the health authorities strongly recommend that…etc.”
Regards,
Jim
according to worldometers, there are 6 states that have deaths per million >= 100
NY, NJ, LA, CT, MI, MA
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
The governor of Michigan is going to be recalled, hopefully.
Globally, the countries that have deaths per million >= 100 are in Europe: Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg
The Swiss (frank) and the British (pound) do not use Euro
Austin has a whopping 856 cases now and only 11 deaths. Yay, the social distancing worked!
Does our communist mayor start talking about how to get back to normal? No, he’s making the rules stricter!
I’m conflicted
obviously I’m happy to hear that the death count is low but so many people in Austin are insufferable
obviously the mayor needs to get sick
LOL! No problem. Notice I didn’t volunteer to go see if I could figure it out myself. :) I was just wondering if you might have heard the reasons from somewhere.
I read their FAQ. It’s a bunch of filler and nonsense
I’d like to recommend Chris Masterjohn’s COVID newsletter. He’s an excellent nutrition researcher with a good PhD, and knows how to read papers.
#43 Ontheleftcoast
I can’t thank you enough for sharing this info — seriously.
“Many people question the importance of this outbreak, and suggest that these are just people dying who would have died anyway from something else. The New York data invalidate this idea.”
Damn straight!
The anecdotal losses are bad enough in NYC; case in point — last week’s death of Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe. Eighty-nine years old, sure, but was it *really* his time to go?
Or take Henry Kissinger (“[N]ot dead yet!”), for instance: Although I have a feeling he’s not riding out the pandemic in his NYC apartment, if he were, and he were to die tomorrow at age ninety-six due to the virus, would we be legitimately in a position to say “Oh well, must have been his time to go, too…”? The guy just published a compelling lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal last month, assessing our predicament and prospects; as a nation we might benefit significantly from as many of his insights as he can further churn out in the weeks and months ahead (not least given his place in history as the architect of our re-opening of China) — or would we be correct in shrugging our shoulders were Kissinger to slip into the virus’s maw a few short weeks after a sweeping rollback of current strictures?
Even setting aside such real or hypothetical “shoulder-shrug” losses, again I have to ask: Are we even ballpark accurate in our understanding of what the characteristics and likely short-to-medium-term health impacts — even on nominally *healthy* people — are going to be with a broad-ranging lifting of strictures presently deemed efficacious (even when that is defined as just enabling a shift from exponential to linear)?
Hardly — and to call all this blithe chatter about getting to herd immunity little more than frivolous bravado is to be pretty generous indeed.
In Kissinger‘s case it could very well be considered having to sleep in the bed he made. He and Nixon are the ones who started the march towards dealing with China.
I don’t want anyone to die. I think pointing to any specific person and saying, “It is time for him to die anyway,” is fairly monstrous. However, people will suffer no matter what. The only question is what measures are reasonable to protect lives without destroying the economy?
This doesn’t prove that point at all. The claim isn’t that they would have died anyway on the same day. It’s that probably would have died before long because of their age or other conditions. We can’t say if this is correct for some months at least. If there are significant excess deaths in 2020 compared to other years then COVID-19 may well be the reason. But we don’t know that yet one way or the other.
That is not a good analysis. I have analyzed this in detail, and posted here at Ricochet. The curve was never exponential, and it has not been linear. If you look at the Lombardy graph at your link, it is misleading. The curve in the early phase is not exponential, but kinda-sorta fits the exponential for a short period of time. The curve in the later phase is not linear, but kinda-sorta fits the linear for a short period of time. The major departure from the (inaccurate) exponential curve occurs right away after the lockdown, when there should be a 5-7 day delay. The actual curve is the S-curve that is predicted not just for Ebola, but for just about any outbreak.
I read your comment, Danny. Your love for your mother is commendable. Your desire to protect her is commendable. Your desire to protect her at any cost, including driving the world into a great depression, is is not reasonable, in my view. It is emotional thinking, and I dissent.
You didn’t say how old your mother is, and I don’t know how old you are yourself. I, too, have loved ones in the vulnerable categories — my mother in her mid-70s, my mother-in-law in her mid-80s, and many dear friends in their 70s and 80s. I am in a vulnerable category myself — though only in my early 50s, I am both male and obese and an ex-smoker.
It is important to know how old your mother is, in order to assess her risk. For most of us, a good recent article by John Ioannidis (here) demonstrates that the risk is comparable to a daily commute in a car. (Thanks to Mendel for the reference.)
#48 Jerry Giordano
77 years old. Enthusiastic gardener and birdwatcher; professionally continues very much active as a successful residential real estate agent.
COPD but not due to any smoking. Concomitant pulmonary hypertension.
Extensive consultations with team of physicians including pulmonologist, cardiologist, PCP etc. — plus invasive/day-surgery cardiac diagnostics — finally yielded, after much trial and error, the correct cocktail of medications to stabilize the COPD and pulmonary hypertension.
Wuhan Virus, unaddressed by a vaccine, means all bets are off.
She always (in the past roughly 6-7 years) has had to be vigilant against the risk of catching a cold — can flare up into bronchitis followed by pneumonia in no time, with associated horrifying blood deoxygenation and thus real risk of death. I personally was on hand for such a near miss in February 2016.
Absent a vaccine, and absent widespread mitigation via mandated social distancing, she will be forced to become even more of a shut-in than has been necessary over the past six weeks — *and* her risk of virus exposure will still go up anyway.
NOTE: Florida’s surgeon general just went on record today saying that present social distancing mandates should remain in effect until a vaccine is available. No reaction from the governor as of this writing. When the chief medical officer for God’s Waiting Room throws down the gauntlet like this, I have to hope he (and sense) will prevail.
Have you considered getting hydroxycholoroquine just in case?
What do you mean by “present social distancing mandates”? Simply staying 6′ apart and wearing a mask in public? Or that plus keeping businesses closed and people shut up in their homes?
I’m sorry for your wife, but the world should not suffer for her sake.
WRONG
THIS IS THE DUMBEST COMMENT – OP INCLUDED