These articles can certainly be scary. It might be good to keep the risks in mind too.
“for people 49 and under, the agency [CDC] estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estima...
“for people 49 and under, the agency [CDC] estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estima...
To get those stats you have to include even uneffect children getting it. A disproportionate about of 20 year olds are infected. If you are in you 30s/40s you are still in danger.
In the well tested korean population the fatality rate for 40–49 was 0.2%, 0.16% for 30s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_South_K...
Korea's average CFR over all population is ~2x even the high estimates of IFR from serology in high-incidence regions (New York, Lombardy) or universal PCR testing of isolated populations (Diamond Princess). It would make sense that their underascertainment would be yet higher for younger people, if they experience lighter symptoms and are thus less likely to seek medical care.
It’s always easy to downplay the risks if you start excluding the most vulnerable.
I have no idea how well this can be captured by the statistics.
I haven’t come across that data. I’d be curious.
What if, of the 10% of hospitalized cases, half of those patients permanently lose a noticeable portion of their lung function? Not supplemental oxygen dependent but can’t walk as far or exercise the same way they could before. That’s a major life change for a huge number of people, when you extrapolate it out to the entire world.
The threat of minor but permanent disability should not be ignored, especially in those who spent weeks on a vent.
When this disease started I thought I'd rather just get it and get it over with, but now I'd rather avoid taking a risk I don't have to.
This is an extremely mild disease, I would assume that in a few months we'll know enough to make it a minor inconvenience for most people (more than it already is, since most people don't even experience symptoms today).
What long-term damage you know of (not saying there isn't, just curious)?
Interestingly in COVID it appears that positioning and CPAP/BIPAP can be more effective that venting in edge cases. This is a very new phenomenon in medicine, and we probably over vented in the early course of the pandemic. We were acting in what we knew of other severe respiratory diseases, and the case data from COVID hadn’t had enough time to present best treatment modalities.
However, to suggest that the lungs are not being absolutely ravaged by the virus infecting, replicating and rupturing lung cells is ludicrous
I was talking about permanent damage. I actually read my comment again, and that isn't really clear.
Doctors in Italy are saying that ventilators were thought to be useful because people complained that they couldn't breath, but now they're saying that it's not the lungs that aren't working, but it's oxygen that is not carried out in the blood, and that ventilators can actually cause permanent damage in many cases.
I'm not a doctor, so I just base everything on what the (supposed?) experts are saying. As far as I know they might very well say that on TV because there aren't enough ventilators, no idea.
But if someone has saturation’s in the shithouse, they’re going to die. Lack of oxygen (Hypoxia) in the blood is many many fold more common than severe thrombosis or whatever else was suggested; and the answer is right there - if the oxygen isn’t getting to the blood it’s because the lungs are shot. If we have enough gear, we put someone in ECMO to solve the gas exchange problem.
Lung damage severe enough to do this is caused by the effects of the disease, not the ventilator
What you're saying makes sense, thanks for explaining.
As far as I know nowhere ever ran out of ventilators, not even in Lombardy. But I sure saw that claim made a lot of times back when people thought that would happen. Spent a lot of time pointing out the authorities were denying it'd happened too. I concluded it's very easy for people to mix up "we think this is about to happen" with "this has happened".
You can also learn a lot from the occasional scientific commenters, they are quick to explain why a serosurvey showing 5% prevalence using a test with 98% specificity means the published results aren't worth much.