cixelsyd Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 10 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said: Well, I think we're going around in circles, so I'll be brief: the head of the WHO today said that the outbreak could be contained, if aggressive measure were taken. That is just one of those (mmmm... how should I word this?) indefensibly optimistic generalities that people in positions of responsibility feel they have to say in order to prevent panic. Quote Unfortunately, the people making the decisions in multiple countries apparently thought, at first, that it would be better to hide the problem than to deal with it, going back to December when the initial researchers in China who were instructed to destroy their findings, and the doctor who tried to sound the alarm was punished for it and then died of the very disease he was trying to warn people about -- That is reprehensible; I am with you there. Unfortunately, we have no voting rights in China. Quote and extending forward to at least this evening when a briefing by heads of the CDC, HHS, and others was conducted with no video or audio, almost certainly because they were afraid what would happen if someone saw them presenting anything less than sunny news on TV. Stop. Just stop. I have watched these not-so-subtle political references from you for awhile, and not said anything because ordinarily you are one of the most insightful and reasoned posters here, and a large part of why my time spent reading this forum has value. And I am still not hitting the report button, even though I know exactly who "someone" is and what you meant by that remark. This is not the time to exploit political grudges. If you believe this is a real public health crisis, you know this is time to unite, not divide. There are a hundred reasons why a particular briefing (on a potential pandemic) may not be suitable for public broadcast. Again, this has the potential for a pandemic. Whoever is taking their turn at leadership has, among their many responsibilities, the need to avoid putting the "pan" in "pandemic" themselves. They have to apply a certain degree of optimism in their messaging, and be mindful of how certain snippets of incomplete information are prone to causing unwarranted alarm. On that, I think we can agree. Quote Now that I am being equally candid, before bowing out (for at least a day) from this thread, in which, I fully acknowledge, I have been an overwhelming presence: the reason for my heavy activity in this discussion is that it was clear by the first few pages that some commenters here were getting their news from a Pollyannish bubble (e.g., "the numbers peaked on Feb 15 and new case and death counts are arriving at a decreasing rate": that was written on 2/26, before the U.S. even had its first but entirely foreseeable deaths), and this seemed to me to be too important a subject to let such potentially dangerous information go by unchallenged. Fair enough, when that was occurring. Not seeing that anymore. In similar fashion, potentially dangerous "information" of the opposite slant deserves pushback as well (e.g. 10% mortality, comparing US to a regime where press people are killed to suppress their reporting). Quote But I don't think there's much more to be gained by my posting endless variations on the two key messages: take basic disease prevention steps in your personal life, and encourage authorities to be aggressive in their response to the outbreak. (Better to do too much than too little in a case like this.) So be safe, everyone. Oh, that was fair enough too. Thank you. Since you mentioned it (and in an attempt to go back on topic), what about the ability of authorities to "be aggressive in their response to the outbreak"? We are a nation of unusual freedoms. Even the idea of limiting international travel temporarily from virus hotspots has met with pushback. How will other ideas like banning large public assembly (i.e. drum corps audiences), or limiting domestic travel (i.e. during tour), go over here? 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllianaLancerContra Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 16 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said: [1] Not at all. I believe daily or twice-daily updates are normal. The point was: [2] 6 deaths out of 60 cases is indeed 10% mortality, just as I said. And in the very same post, I say that we have no reason to believe this disease has a 10% mortality rate, which means that the CDC had some very misleading data. In other words, The Official Coronavirus Numbers Are Wrong, And Everyone Knows It. We haven't been testing at anything like the level we should have. (In other countries like South Korea and Italy, they're testing more people every day than we've tested in a month. Here's another example: the U.K. has tested 13,911 people. The U.S., per the CDC, has tested fewer than 700.) That's probably the most important thing authorities can do. Some people were urging authorities to do this a month ago. Had their warnings been heeded, maybe there wouldn't have been nine deaths in Washington, even in that long-term care facility, because sick patients could have been isolated from other residents. (Just tonight, the person leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus announced new guidance from the CDC giving full clinical discretion to order tests. That's good news! But no audio or video was allowed in the briefing during which this update (and other official news on the outbreak) was announced. The reason for that is pretty obvious and pathetic.) Speaking of Washington, per this article in Stat (a medical news site): "The coronavirus outbreak in the Seattle area is at a critical juncture and could see explosive growth in cases much like Wuhan, China, if public officials don’t take immediate, forceful measures, according to a new analysis of genetic data." I don't think the data is misleading, I believe it is in part due to the small sample size of 60 confirmed cases at the time. I also believe several of the fatal cases were in a "nursing home (sorry if that is not the PC term)" in the Seattle area. When all is said & done, and assuming there is someone still alive to do it, a big epidemiological study with random (or perhaps stratified random) sampling of a large number (in the tens of thousands) of individuals to see who has developed antibodies asymptomatically with followups to see where they might have been exposed seems appropriate. Golly that is a long sentence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karuna Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 On 3/3/2020 at 7:14 PM, karuna said: WGI responds https://wgi.org/coronavirus-information-from-wgi/ DCI sees WGI response and decides maybe they should post something too! https://www.dci.org/news/dci-closely-monitoring-coronavirus-developments 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeN Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Hooray for closely monitoring! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 (edited) 7 minutes ago, MikeN said: Hooray for closely monitoring! Mike And to go with close monitoring.... Read an article why possibly almost all deaths are related to the one care facility in Kirkland. Among the lower resistance with the residents (which could be any facility like this) is possibly better monitoring in WA to see if deaths were caused by coronavirus. IOW might be other deaths we don’t know about. Unfortunately whole article was guesses and no fact digging Edited March 5, 2020 by JimF-LowBari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DFA1970 Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 18 minutes ago, MikeN said: Hooray for closely monitoring! Mike That is from the text book of gov't or "official" sayings during a crisis. It's not just "monitoring"...it's "Closely" being done. That's a BIG difference. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Tuma Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Now that more test kits are being sent out we’ll probably see an upward spike in confirmed cases. I’m not going to worry because the president has a “hunch” that the CDC and WHO statistics aren’t accurate. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RetiredMusTeach Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Just posted on SC Vanguard's FB page: "In an an effort to protect our members and staff from an outbreak of Coronavirus in Santa Clara County, VMAPA will be cancelling upcoming March events, including drum corps rehearsal camps and the annual Vanguard Birthday Brunch on March 28." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 The overreaction is ridiculous 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpbobcat Posted March 5, 2020 Author Share Posted March 5, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Brian Tuma said: Now that more test kits are being sent out we’ll probably see an upward spike in confirmed cases. I’m not going to worry because the president has a “hunch” that the CDC and WHO statistics aren’t accurate. Statistically,more people being tested, means there will be more positive test results. It doesn't change the percentages of people who will "self heal",or show no symptoms at all. More tests/positive test results also means that,unless the severity of the virus increases dramatically, mathematically the % of people dying drops. Edited March 5, 2020 by rpbobcat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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