If you told six month ago me that we'd be treating people who are high risk of this disease the same as people with low risk I would have been in complete disbelief.
I will remember our experts telling us to intubate early and withhold steroids for a very long time. We killed a lot of people because a minority wanted to show off. This is depressing.
Yes, they were show-offs and they still are. There is no justification for throwing away years of clinical experience with ARDS based on the personal opinions of a few who want to steal the spotlight by relying on novelty. They deserve to be despised, and I can say that with full confidence because I know a few of them personally.
BTW yes, they said that. And now we see that using them and trying to keep people breathing by themselves, we do much better (big surprise).
I do a lot of medical research and I am fully confident in saying that to decide to go against the grain based on preliminary data is irresponsible in medicine.
As a personal note, the attitude of medical researchers and the loosening of ethical and legal boundaries pertaining to research I saw in the first wave make me puke.
Appreciate it (and your reply!)
I think the issue was that most of the decisions made, over-reliance on intubation, withholding steroids, etc where made in the beginning, in places were the hospitals were overloaded and there was this sense of urgency and panic. Then some random study is showing a 18% fatality rate in severe cases with steroids Vs 14% without, giving the impression that this virus works like no other
> some random study is showing a 18% fatality rate in severe cases with steroids Vs 14% without, giving the impression that this virus works like no other
Exactly. And I think that this goes to show that the current dynamics of medical research are highly toxic. The synergy between the 'publish or perish' motto and the myriad of Excel spreadsheet warriors who go on to become influential professors kills a lot of people.
How do you picture different kinds of measures per risk group going? People can already choose to isolate more, disinfect more, keep distance more, etc. if they find themselves at risk. The compulsory measures are a bare minimum to prevent unnecessary deaths and keep the long term impact to a minimum. You can find a new job next year and live on government benefits in the meantime (or is the worst-case scenario for you not unemployment and boredom? Well, infecting loved ones would be worse in these times but you don't seem to find that very worrying) but if you're one of today's corona deaths you can't find another life.
Are you really claiming with a straight face that the chance of a young person who gets infected dying is 1/100?
Would love to see you try to provide a source for that...
The problem with that kind of thinking is it doesn't account for how the government gets money, which generally taxes on stuff being produced. If you don't produce stuff, you cannot redistribute it. There's no magic "the government takes care of it, we can all stay home forever" concept.
Increased government spending now means increased taxes tomorrow, that ought to be obvious.
A recovering economy and greater economic activity leads to greater tax revenue without necessarily increasing taxation rates.
This is a natural "budget stabilizer" effect that happens during recessions and expansions.
Debt funding is currently at historically low, almost zero/negative rates. Australia's debt-to-GDP is relatively low (42% prior to the current recession), our debt ratings are AAA.
That's just a path for hyper inflation when no increased production is included. Money is a placeholder for value. If you don't create value and print money, the money doesn't magically create the stuff that gives it value.
It might not ruin a country, but I very much dislike this "whatever, the state can pay" hand-waving that just assumes the products magically appear if you just increase the money supply. There's no perpetual money machine, you can't just spend a billion as a state and generate 1.2bn in taxes, rinse & repeat.
[1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/deaths-a...
0-19----99.997%
20-49---99.98%
50-69---99.5%
70+-----94.6%
First, deaths aren't the only measure. For every death there are many more people that just barely survive after a hospital stay, and data suggests a significant amount of those people will have long-term problems.
Second, if the hospitals are overloaded by such people (even if most of them survive) then the IFR of Covid can rise higher than 0.5-1%.
...where long-term means a few months at most. People do recover, just uncomfortably slowly.
> Second, if the hospitals are overloaded by such people (even if most of them survive) then the IFR of Covid can rise higher than 0.5-1%.
I'm not so sure about that. These IFR estimates haven't changed much since spring, when half of those hospitalized died.[1,2,3] Our treatment methods have improved since then. If the estimates reflected the IFR with treatment, they would be lower today. So I think an IFR of 0.5-1% is actually the worst case.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any source explicitly comparing death rates with vs without treatment.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
[2] https://in.dental-tribune.com/news/new-estimate-by-the-cdc-b...
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
> The parameters in the scenarios:
> Are estimates intended to support public health preparedness and planning.
> Are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19.
> Do not reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing, or other interventions.
Estimates are the realest thing we have.
> Do not reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing, or other interventions.
How would these things affect the IFR negatively?